Raz Bradley 9/9/18 Raz Bradley 9/9/18

Noah Part II

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. We are in part two of Noah this week. We're in Genesis 8 and 9. Last week was a heavy week.

We walked through God pouring out His judgment in the flood on the earth. And this week is a big shift into redemption. It's going to feel like a big shift. Every now and then, my wife and I, right before we have friends come over, we decide that that is the time that we're going to have an argument. We just think, what an opportune moment, five minutes before our friends come in the door. And so it starts with a comment, and then it goes back and forth, and then we kind of have this look like, are we going to do this right now?

And then we do, and then it gets a little heated, and all of a sudden the doorbell rings. Or they knock on the door, and we invite them in, and they immediately realize, wait a second, we've just stepped into something. Mostly, mostly because my wife is not a poker player. Like, she's one of the ones I love her. She's one of the most genuine people I've ever met. What you see is what you get.

Like, sometimes she stumbles in on a Sunday morning, and everyone's like, is she okay? She looks mad. It's like, yeah, she is. She had to take two small children, put them in a car by herself this morning. One of them is an emotional three-year-old. And yes, she's not doing well, but she's here.

And our friends will walk in the door, and they'll realize that the mood is a little heavy, and we have to make the shift from, okay, we will settle this later. There's a lot of emotions still in this, but we'll deal with this later. Our friends are here. This is exciting. Let's eat a meal.

Let's hang out. Let's have fun. And that's kind of the shift that we're making this week. There's going to be some lingering kind of thoughts, some lingering discussions, some lingering emotions from last week, but it shifts really hard into hope. And that's where the text starts today. So as we walk through Genesis 8 and 9, we're going to see kind of four movements.

We're going to see God's redemption and restart. That's the first thing we're going to see, his redemptive work and the restart of creation. We're going to see, secondly, sin's cost. That God is going to remind them that sin still has a cost. Thirdly, we're going to see that sin still remains, that the flood didn't fix sin. And then lastly, we're going to see God's covenant of grace.

So let me pray, and then we'll jump into the text. Father, thank you so much for your word. God, I pray that you would help us be present this morning, that wherever we came in this morning, that you would help block everything out. Help us be present. Speak your word to us. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so we're in chapter 8, first five verses. It says, But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the water subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed. The rains in the heavens were restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days, the water had abated.

And in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month. And the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. So we see a hard shift right out the gate in the beginning of chapter 8 when it says, But God remembered Noah. That's the shift that happens. They've been in a season of waiting after seeing God's judgment poured out on the earth, and then God remembers.

That term that's used in Genesis and used throughout the Old Testament is a euphemism. It's a term that is used for, but God is going to fulfill His promise. He remembers what He had promised to Noah, that redemption is coming. We're going to see it show up again in Abraham, in the story of Abraham and Sarah. It is God remembering His promise. So, as hope enters this scene, there's some interesting language in this passage.

It says, And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the water subsided. So that phrase, And God made a wind blow over the earth, that is meant to catch your attention. That is meant to draw you back. In the same way that if I were to say, if I were to sing a song, which I won't do this morning, if I were to sing one line that said, She's got a smile, it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories, for some of you, that's going to take you back to acid-washed jeans, and big hair, and where you were in the 80s when you got to listen to Guns and Roses. If I were to sing, I'm such a baby, yeah, the dolphins make me cry, that's going to take some of you back to where you were in the 90s, when you were listening to Hootie, when you got to listen to Crack Rearview Mirror, and the whole album, and just all of the 90s, it's going to draw you back.

If I were to say, I go on too many dates, but I can't make them stay, some of you are going to have some memories of how you had a cathartic experience with Taylor Swift, to get over your ex, right? Like, these phrases, these verses draw you back, and that is what the Bible does over and over again. And this is meant to draw you back to Genesis 1. Wind hovering over the earth, just as in Genesis 1, as we talked about last week, God's work was pulling the waters back in creation to make way for land. His judgment was releasing the waters to come back, and now God is recreating, going back to Genesis 1.

If you skip down to verse 15, it says this, Then God said to Noah, Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, birds and animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And hear this, That they may swarm on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. That is language that goes back to Genesis 1. The picture here is God is recreating. He is restarting in this new world as the waters are ceasing.

So then you go back to verse 4, and I love this, the detail here. It says, In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat, and the waters continued to abate until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. I love the detail that is in this passage. I mean, it's wordy. It's giving you specific time.

And then it doesn't just say generally where the ark rested. It says, In the mountains of Ararat. And I love this because the Bible isn't folklore. The Bible is history. It's telling a historical account of what happened. That's one of the reasons that C.S.

Lewis, when he was an atheist, had to come to terms with the Bible. He understood. He had a Ph.D. in folklore literature. And he goes, No, this is different. The Bible is actually presenting itself as history. It wasn't just somewhere.

It landed in the mountains of Ararat. That is northwestern Assyria in the kingdom. That's modern day, somewhere between Armenia and eastern Turkey. This is, I love the detail as it walks through this. This is historical retelling of this account. And then it gives us some more details.

It says in verse 6, At the end of forty days, Noah opened a window of the ark that he had made and he sent forth a raven. Now, we don't really have, from the text, we can't tell exactly why he sent out a raven. We just know that he did. But I had to think, because if you read on, the raven is sent out and it just doesn't come back, I like to think it was probably a little bit disappointing. He's, after a year of being on the ark, he sends out a raven and it just never comes back. They're getting ready for this restart.

And oftentimes, in life, when you restart, when you turn over a new leaf, some people will get, like a puppy, or they'll get a dog, or they'll get an animal. And I feel like the situation had to be like, if you were restarting and you went and you got a puppy from the store and you brought home the puppy and you put it out in the backyard and you're just so excited that you brought it home and then it sees an opening in the fence and it looks back at you and it looks at the fence and it bolts and it never comes back. Like, I feel like that, that's got to be a little bit disappointing. He sends out the raven, it never comes back.

And then the text picks back up and it picks up in verse 8 and it says, he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. So we get a little more detail here. The dove was sent out to see if the water had subsided. Now, a dove is an interesting choice. He could have chosen anything. He could have chosen an eagle or a falcon, but he chose a tiny dove to accomplish this mission.

And that is significant because in ancient Near Eastern culture, a dove represents purity. It represents cleanliness. So it's supposed to be drawing you in to this restart, this theme of a new creation. Now, it should be noted that there are contemporary, there's a contemporary story that is about as old as some of the writings of the Bible. It's called the Epic of Gilgamesh. Alright, so in the Epic of Gilgamesh, there's a, I know some of you love reading old Akkadian literature, but really quickly, let me just tell you what the Epic of Gilgamesh is about.

All kinds of things. And in the middle of, or towards the end of the Epic of Gilgamesh, there is a flood narrative. And it's very similar in some ways to this flood narrative. They sent out a raven, they sent out a dove and a swallow. And what skeptics will do is they'll say, see, this is all just blended stories. The Bible isn't true.

This is all just blended folklore together. Now, aside from the reasons we just stated, this is, this reads way differently than the Epic of Gilgamesh, that it's telling history. What, what, what I don't understand and what logic has been hijacked when it comes to this, is that that doesn't actually, that makes a better case for the Bible because when you have multiple stories that are drawing from the same thing, it's way more likely there is an original source material. And it's way more likely that it's pulling from, the Akkadian people actually came from Noah. So they're going to have glimpses of, of the story.

And what we are saying is the Bible speaks truthfully and this is the original source material and that the Epic of Gilgamesh is pulling from this. So for the three of you that love Akkadian literature, you're welcome. For the rest of you, you need to have a little bit of a working knowledge of how to answer skeptics when they come at you with stuff like this. So, in this story, he sends out a dove and two attempts it finally comes back. It comes back with an olive branch. An olive branch is also symbolic.

An olive branch in ancient Near Eastern culture, it symbolizes fertility and beauty. So all, if you are listening to this with ancient Near Eastern ears, what you are picking up on is that hope has come. The mood has shifted and that God is recreating the world. And you pick up in verse 19. It says, Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth went out by families from the ark. So after a year on the ark, they disembark.

They leave. And as they leave, the first thing the text tells us is that they need to be reminded that sin costs. That's God's first lesson when they get off the ark that sin costs. It picks up in verse 20. It says, Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings to the Lord. Now, as we talked about last week, they boarded one male, one female of all the animals, but they added some extra animals in chapter 7 for this purpose, for animal sacrifice to happen.

Now, it is easy for us to look at passages like this and to go, that's weird. For most of us, animal sacrifice is foreign to us. Some of you may spend Friday nights doing that, but I'd be willing to bet the majority of us say, no, this is actually pretty foreign from us. Now, it is easy for us to pass judgment on things that are so culturally distant from us. In college, I got to study abroad and some of my best friends on my study abroad trip were from New England and they were women and what would happen is we'd go travel together and I would open doors for them and they were thrown off by this.

They go, oh no, is that a power play? Is it because you're a man? I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Ha ha. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, animal sacrifice that you're going to see. And in the Old Testament law, it makes a system of it. And it does two things.

We look at it from the book of Hebrews and the New Testament back at the Old Testament. Firstly, animal sacrifice was meant to give a vivid display of what rebellion looks like. As we talked about last week and the week before, it is cosmic treason when you sin against God. You've sinned against the God of the universe and they needed a visual reminder that said, this is rebellion and this is the cost. It costs blood. And it was a grotesque, I mean, the whole process was gross because it's meant to show the grotesque nature of sin.

So it's a visual reminder of what rebellion looks like. But ultimately what it does is it points forward to the final sacrifice in Jesus, that he was the perfect sacrifice that came. So this is the early workings of what's happening here in the Old Testament and accomplishing those two things. And when Noah and his family get off of the ark, they need this lesson. It's been a year since they saw God's wrath poured out on the earth. They need to be reminded of God's judgment.

They need to be reminded of the cost of sin. They need to feel the weight of it. And then in verse 21, we see why. Picks up in verse 21, it says, and when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever strike down every living creature as I have done.

So we mentioned this last week, that sin still remains. The flood did not fix the problem of sin. There is a sinful nature buried underneath the surface. Regularly at my house in my backyard, I have a war with weeds. Like my front yard is really thick, luscious grass. And the backyard is like five types of grass and other things.

And I mean, it's a regular battle for me. And I will go scorch earth on it. I will put roundup out and all of a sudden I'll see more weeds sprout up. I'll get intentional and I'll find them and I will pull them up individually and deroot them. And eventually a little bit longer, it'll pop back up. Because what's happening is underneath the surface, there's an entire root system that I have not pulled up from underneath the surface.

And that is so true of our sin. You can go scorched earth on it. You can have, you can change behaviors, you can change patterns, you can, you can spray roundup all over it and it still creeps up. You can go after root idols, which is something that we talk about regularly in our church. We tackle idols. The reason why that you sin is because there's idols beneath the surface.

There are things we worship in the place of God. So you don't just get angry. There's something underneath the surface. For me, one of my root idols is I have an idol of control. Like I want to be like God. And when things don't go my way, I get angry.

So regularly in my house, when my emotional three-year-old goes off the rails, I get angry. And what's being revealed there is a control issue that I want to control the behavior of my three-year-old. And I get angry. So it's good. I want to go to work on that root idol. But here's the deal.

Underneath the root is a whole sin nature. And it's important that we go after root idols. It's important that we address sin. But we need to have the understanding that ultimately, there's a sin nature underneath. And that is something we're going to have to continue to go to war with because we have inherited that all the way back to Noah, all the way back to Adam. It is underneath the surface.

And it shows up in a very vivid picture here. If you skip over to chapter 9, we're going to see the sinful nature show up first. Over in chapter 9, verse 18 and following. It says, The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah.

And from these people, the whole earth was dispersed. Noah began to be a man of the soil. He planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both of their shoulders, walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.

Their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, shall he be to his brothers. And the story keeps going and he gives blessings to the other brothers. Now, in typical Genesis form, it gets weird. His story just, it just, it's a little bit weird. So as you walk through it, what you first see is that Noah, when he gets off the ark, he plants a vineyard, which is good.

If I was on the ark for the year, I probably would have planted a vineyard. And he harvests the grapes and then he makes wine. And then we see what happens. He twists the good gift that God has given him in wine and he gets wasted. He gets drunk and he passes out naked. In humiliating fashion, the sinful nature is on display.

So he passes out drunk, naked in his tent. And then the story gets a little bit weirder. His son Ham walks in, sees that he's naked. And then the text tells us he walks out and he talks to his brothers. His brothers, they walk in, they take a covering, they make sure they don't see him, they cover him up and they don't look at him and they walk back out. And then after this, Noah wakes up and Noah gets angry and he curses the line of Ham, which is Canaan.

And that's why it mentions the father of Canaan multiple times in this passage, that the Canaanites who will come from Ham, if you read the rest of the Old Testament, they end up being the enemies of God. And you read this and you're like, what in the world is going on? That seems like it might be a little bit of an overreaction. What is happening here? Commentators have looked at this for a very long time to figure out what's happening. And here's one thing that is clear from this passage, that the actions of Ham were dishonoring.

They were dishonoring towards his father. We don't know if he was making fun of him, if he was joking, if he came out. We don't know if he was just making a mockery of his father. We can tell from the text that his brothers take a completely different approach. They go out of their way to make sure they walk backwards, that they don't look at their father, that they cover him up, they cover up his shame, and then they walk out. So we don't know the full extent of what happens, but we do know from the context that what they did was dishonoring towards, that what he did was dishonoring towards his father.

And that is significant. You see, we read that and we don't think it's that big of a deal because we are so far removed from what the Bible teaches on honoring your parents. Some of us, if our father passed out naked, we would probably take pictures. We would make light of it. And that's just the reality. Because we don't have an honor culture when it comes to honoring our parents.

And the Bible takes a way different tone. From Old Testament to New, it is a big deal to dishonor your parents. It's a huge deal. And we don't take that seriously. We make all kinds of excuses why we shouldn't do that. Well, that's not that big of a deal.

That maybe our parents don't deserve it. That we didn't, maybe they weren't the greatest parents in the world. So, I don't want to make light of that. I would encourage you, if you are struggling with that concept, to honor your parents. We did preach on this, this spring. We walked through Ephesians 6.

Chet walked through this. And I would encourage you to go back and listen to it because it is a very significant sin that the Bible takes very seriously, that you are called to honor your parents. So, there are two big sins that come out of this story. Noah's drunkenness, Ham's dishonoring of his parents. And what we see here is the flood did not fix sin. That sinful nature is still on display.

It is going to take more than a flood to fix the problem of sin. And that is what is pointed to in the last part of this story. We see God's covenant of grace. It picks up in verse 11 of chapter 9. I establish my covenant with you. This is God talking.

That never again shall any flesh be cut off from the waters and from the flood, the waters of the flood. And never again shall there be any flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring the clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. So God establishes a covenant and then he gives a sign for the covenant, which is helpful. And we still have this today. The most comparative thing we have for us today is marriage. Yesterday in our church family, I got to perform a wedding ceremony and there were rings that were exchanged.

And the ring is significant because what the ring says is that I have covenanted to have life together, to be one flesh with somebody else. And that is the sign of it. Years ago, when I got married, I chose this ring that was bigger and that was gold for two reasons. I like the classic look. I think graphite was pretty big at the time. But more importantly, I wanted something that was big that would stand out because I want people to see that, no, I belong to somebody, that I've covenanted to life together with my wife.

And it came in handy in the first year of our marriage. I worked at a coffee shop and and there's there's a few times that that women would come up and they would be flirting and they'd start to hit on me. And what I love to do is I would take my hand from behind the bar and I'd say, oh, that's great. And I would just twist my ring. And eventually they got the message. And what I've learned is and what I've noticed is that over the years, as I've gotten older, that girls are a lot better at noticing this.

They haven't been hit on in years because they're really good at really good at picking up on that. It's a sign of the covenant that I have in marriage and God establishes a covenant and he gives a sign for it, a sign that they would remember. Now, covenant relationships by nature are relationships of favor. We're going to get into that more in Abraham and the covenant that he makes coming up in the next month. But is God specifically looking at another party and finding favor on that specific party?

And that God's covenants, what he covenants here in this passage is that he's never going to destroy the earth again by flood. That is not what he is going to do. And it's not just a covenant that he makes with Noah. He makes it with Noah, all future generations, all living creatures, everyone. And the sign of the covenant is a rainbow. It says in verse 16, when the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.

I personally, I love the symbol here. I love that God shows the rainbow to teach us grace. That after the storms, that after the darkness, that after everything they had been through, God puts a rainbow in the sky. And what the rainbow gets to be is it gets to be the backdrop of God's grace. Because here's the deal. You don't find a rainbow on a sunny day.

That's not typically how it works. You find a rainbow after a storm has passed through. And what's happening in this text is that ultimately the rainbow, it points forward to Christ. The word for rainbow here, for bow in this passage, is also the same word that is used for a battle bow in the Hebrew. And what is being said here, and Charles Spurgeon, the pastor from the 19th century, he makes this point, that ultimately the rainbow points to Christ, that a rainbow itself is pointed upward. And what he is making the point is, is that it's pointing up to the one who is going to come down and actually accomplish the problem of sin.

He makes this point, he says, God's rainbow is hung over the cloud of our sins, our sorrow, and our woes to prophesy deliverance. And that deliverance of the battle bow that the rainbow was pointing to is the cross. That is where the battle with sin and evil is going to be won. But as we talked about last week, on the cross, Jesus takes the flood. He takes the flood of God's wrath that is poured out on him, and that we get the ark. And that Noah gets the ark, that like Noah, we get and receive grace.

Tim Keller, another pastor, he puts it this way. He says, on the cross, the storm of eternal justice and the son of God's love comes together. And that's why you have a rainbow. And every time you look into the heart of the storm and you see the rainbow of grace, you see that's where Jesus went. He went into the heart of the storm so that we could get the rainbow, so that we could get grace. And that's the reality, that never do you see God's grace at work without seeing your sin, without seeing grace as the backdrop to the storm.

Some of you came into here in a lot of different places. Maybe some of you are in a season that is really dark. Maybe some of you are in a season where you are tempted by unbelief. Like you've been coming, you've been preaching the gospel to yourself, you've been trying to be in community group, and it's been really difficult. You are just tempted by unbelief. You're like, what is the point?

This season is so dark. I don't know if I'm going to get to the other side. Maybe some of you, it is hard for you right now to talk to God. Like you want to pray, but you are just tempted by believing, does he even care? Is he even listening? Is this even worth it?

Maybe some of you in a really dark season of temptation with sin, that in the darkest parts of the night, in the darkest parts of your soul, you are tempted, whether it's lust, whether it's pride, whether it's bitterness, that sin is crouching at the door. And in this dark season, it is hard for you to see through the other side. Maybe some of you are just generally struggling through depression, that there's this physical darkness that is weighing over you, and it is hard for you to see hope on the other side. The reality is that in seasons, we will come into seasons of darkness, seasons of trials, season of storms, seasons of hopelessness.

And what God is trying to say to you through this story, like a father who looks at his child and with a child whose head is just looking down, he's looking at you and he says, pick up your head. Do you see it? Do you see the rainbow? I know it is hard, but do you see grace? It's behind the storm. In this season, it is difficult, but my grace is still sufficient.

My grace is still there. You don't have to earn my favor. I'm here. I gave you faith. I will carry it through to completion, and I'm not going anywhere. You have to trust me in this season.

We will get to the other side. My grace still remains. Do you see it? That's the hope that we have in this story, that in a season of darkness, you can look past the storm and you can see God's grace, that his redemption is there. And that is the hope that we have in the gospel.

Raz Bradley 9/2/18 Raz Bradley 9/2/18

Noah Part I

Transcript

So if you have a Bible, you can go ahead and flip there. If you don't have a Bible, there should be a blue one nearby. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. That is our gift to you. In the blue Bibles, it will be page three. My wife and I, we have in movies a guilty pleasure.

We love disaster movies. So like 2012, Day After Tomorrow, classics. We love it. The more over the top, the more ridiculous it can get, we're all about it. There was a movie that came out this year called Geostorm about a satellite system that made the weather turn on the whole globe. And it was amazing.

It was way over the top. It was ridiculous. And we love it. We love movies like that. I feel like we're not alone because America watches them because they keep making them. And I feel like one of the reasons why that we can enjoy those kind of disaster movies is because we are so far removed from the subject matter.

And if we are face-to-face with an actual disaster, we wouldn't be able to enjoy it. We don't appreciate the full kind of horror of the event until we're up close with it. And I feel like that we have done that a little bit with the story of Noah. That we've distanced ourselves from the story. And because of that, we don't want to stare at it. We don't want to wade into it and understand it.

We want to distance ourselves because it's a little bit scary and it deals with the judgment of God. And I think this happens at a very young age. That if you grew up in the church, if you grew up around church, if you had any type of Christian church background, at a young age, you heard this story told as kind of a cute tale with cute pictures. And everyone was kind of happy. Now, I looked at the internet and I found some pictures that I think captured this. I just got three of them.

There's thousands of them for children's ministry. This is the classic Noah selfie. And everyone's happy. Noah's happy. The animals are happy. If this is after the flood, it's severely inappropriate.

But everyone, this is kind of like, this is kind of the pictures you get. Everyone's really happy. I found another one. This one's called Noah's Ark. The white, clean storybook. It has a heavy sense of irony in the title.

That they would make a white, clean storybook to tell the story of Noah. If you didn't get it, it'll come in a second. It's ironic. It's a little bit dark. This third one is classic funny picture you get out of Noah. You got Noah.

He's taking a shower, having a good old time. His wife's doing the laundry. You got some animals that are fishing. There's a nice Titanic moment happening up front. And there are tons, there are tons and tons of pictures that are just like this. That kind of reduce Noah to this cute story.

And that is so far removed from what it actually is. We are uncomfortable with this story. And we have sanitized it. We've sanitized the judgment of it. We've sanitized the horror of it. And that's not the way this story is meant to be read.

It's not a cute story. It is a story that is meant to shock you. It is a story that shows the judgment of God. Now this story today is going to be really heavy. We're in part one of the story and the flood. There's going to be a silver lining of redemption that we'll see at the end.

And it will be more as we focus on next week. But this week is heavy. And as we work through the flood story, there's four things we're going to see. We're going to see the corruption of man, which is how we got to this scene. We're going to see God's sorrow over man's sin. We're going to see that followed by God's response to sin, which is judgment.

And then we're going to see God's promise of redemption kept. So today is going to be heavy. But the more that we weighed into this story, the more that we understand it, the better the redemption is that we have in Jesus. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to dive in. God, thank you so much for your word, even when it is difficult to read, even when it's difficult to understand and absorb. God, I pray that today that we would be present, that if we immediately are opposed to this story, that we would be willing to listen and that you would speak to us.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so we are working through Genesis, which means as you work through Genesis, there's going to be these landmines that just pop up. We could avoid them, but that would be avoiding whole sections of the Bible. We're not going to do that. So before we even get to Noah, there's a setup.

And within the setup that gets to Noah, there's a couple landmines. The first one is found in the genealogy in Genesis 5. Genesis 5 is a genealogy, and like most genealogies, this is where your annual Bible reading plans go to die. I mean, they can be really long. They can be kind of boring. But there's actually some good stuff in this genealogy.

And I just want to read the first three verses. I'm not going to read the whole chapter. I just want to get the first three verses to get a feel for what's happening in this genealogy. Start us out in verse 1. This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

Male and female, he created them. And he blessed them and named them man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. Now, if you read that, and then you keep reading, you're going to, if you are naturally skeptical, you're going to raise your hand, and you're going to wonder, wait a second, he had a kid at 130 years old, and then it says that he died at 930 years old, and that Methuselah, another character, died at 969 years old. So if you are naturally skeptical, or you're just inquisitive, you're going to raise your hand, you're going to be like, what is your Bible saying?

Are you serious? The Bible is serious. All right? There's two ways to explain this. Chet hinted at one of them last week. There are some theories that help explain why people live so long early on in the Bible.

The first theory, and Chet hinted at this last week, is that early on in the gene pool, the original design for man was that man would not be corrupted by, that man would live forever, and they were not corrupted by sin. So they were created to live forever, and then slowly, as sin started to wade through the gene pools, it started to corrupt man, slowly, you see lifespans, they start to get to where they are today. Now that's a theory, and there's a couple of them that are like that, but here's the more important way of understanding this. When you come to situations like this in the Bible, time and time again, you're going to wonder what is happening, because we live in a world with a natural worldview.

And you're going to see stuff that happens, it's outside of that natural worldview, it's outside, and it's supernatural. The Bible does this over and over again. Our whole faith hinges on the fact that God became man by way of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died the death on the cross, was dead and buried, and raised from the grave, and then floated into heaven at the ascension. That doesn't happen in everyday life. It's outside of the natural. And over and over again, you're going to see in the Bible that there are situations that go outside the natural, and this is one of them.

That early on, this is God's design. And while it is foreign to us, the Bible speaks truthfully. So if you work through that landmine, then you can actually start to see a little bit of what's happening in this genealogy. I'll just make a few quick points on Genesis 5. Firstly, the fact that in all genealogies, people are named show that God cares about our story. That each of these individuals has a story.

That God values humanity. Even in this genealogy, in the front end, it says, he links it to these people that descended from Adam being made in the image of God. Showing that each of them has value. Each of them has worth. God values humanity. What you see after this as well is that each one of these people died.

And it shows, genealogies show the effect of sin. That death is present. Everyone dies. The third thing that we can see about this genealogy is that this is the line of Seth. This is the line of Seth that God has chosen through Seth to bring the seed of Eve, the rescuer, Jesus, who will come. And through Seth, we get to Noah.

So we're about to start. We're in chapter 6. We're about to start Noah. And then the second landmine shows up in chapter 6 in the first four verses. It says, When man began to multiply on the face of the lamb, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took them as their wives, any they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh.

His days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days. And also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Now, for thousands of years, believers have looked at this and said, What in the world is going on? Why is this story even here?

It is very hard to understand. There are two prevailing theories, two prevailing interpretations that have come out of this text over the last few thousand years. And it deals with, Who are the sons of God? Who are the sons of God? The first view, and this is the more historic view, is that the sons of God in this passage refer to angels. That angels came down, and laid with the daughters of men, and had children.

Yes. Genesis got weird. Alright, that's the first view. And we see that in the Old Testament, you look in the book of Job, you look at the book of Daniel, that the sons of God is how it refers to angels in those passages. So there's some textual way to that actually being true.

That angels came down, and lay with women, and they had children. The second view, is that this is simply the line of Seth. That the line of Seth, these are different from the line of Cana. They came, and this seems to be, on its face, sexual sin. So something was happening here, that was not good.

And that view kind of avoids the weirdness of what, of the first view. But honestly, there's no need to avoid the weirdness, because of what follows next. Because of who the children that they actually had, were called. They were called the Nephilim. The Nephilim is an English word, that went from Latin to Greek, back to Hebrew. And all it means, is giants.

Very large peoples. So they had these children, and they were giants. They were the mighty men of old. And it gets weirder. So I'm like, I don't think you need to avoid, the view of this being weird, because it already is weird.

And I think that, I lean towards, I don't go hard on this, but I lean towards, the historic view, that this is referring to angels. Angels came down, committed sexual sin with humans, and produced giant people. And that gets, you read that, and you're like, that, okay, what's going on here? Here's the point. Why was this even here, in the first place? This is here to show, that the world has gone off the rails.

This is not the way, it is supposed to be. We just saw, in chapter 4, how the world has been ruined by violence. And now we see sexual sin, is all over the world at this point. This is not the way, it is supposed to be. The world has gone off the rails. Corruption has spread everywhere.

And that is the lead in, to Noah. So we're going to be in verses 5 through 8, of chapter 6, for a little bit. This is kind of a header, that explains the whole story, as a whole. And we're going to work through it, starting in verse 5. The Lord saw the wickedness of man, was great in the earth. And that every intention, of the thoughts of his heart, was only evil continually.

That every intention, of the thoughts of his heart, was only evil continually. That's the picture of humanity. It's not just a few bad apples. The whole tree, is rotten down the roots. Every thought and intention, of the heart, is corrupted by evil. And that is why, there's rampant violence, that's why there's rampant, sexual sin.

Now you might think, that's being, is that being overstated? Like every single thought, every intention of the heart, is that hyperbole? And I would say, I don't think so. Think about your own thoughts. How quickly, do good thoughts, get corrupted, and turn to bad? How quickly, in a situation, like maybe you have a friend, or someone in our church family, they get a job promotion, or they get, they level up in a new tax bracket.

And our, our, our Jesus-centered response is, I am so thankful, that God has provided for them. How quickly, does that turn to, but what about me? God, why haven't I moved up? How did I get passed over, for the promotion? How quickly, do we turn, to jealousy? This happens with kids.

You might have, kids, and if you have children, there's always going to be children, that are better at, whether it's grades, your kids might make, good grades, that your friends' kids, will probably make, better grades. Your kid might be good at sports, your kid, their, your friends' kids, are going to be, better at sports. And we get, we go from, celebrating our friends, and their families, and what's going on, to like, moving into a Tanya Harding mode, that we want to take out, other children. Our kid has got to be the best. Our kid's going to advance. Everyone move out of the way.

We do this with lust. You can't just notice, that somebody is beautiful, or somebody is handsome. It quickly goes from that, to I wonder what's underneath. I wonder what it's like, to be with them. We do this with, so many thoughts, that we think are pure. They are actually, there's sin attached to them.

That we are corrupt. And the picture of humanity here, is it is corrupt. It is rotten to the core. And this grieves God. It grieves God. We pick up in verse 6.

It says, And the Lord regretted, that he had made man, on the earth. And it grieved him, to his heart. He regretted, that he made man, and it grieved him. This reminds me, there's a, there's a movie called, American History X. It came out in the late 90's. It was Edward Norton's, big breakout film.

And, and it's about, a guy who grows up, and as, at an early age, he starts getting exposed, to racism, and to prejudice. And, it starts to grow in him, like a cancer. And then eventually, he starts, he gets introduced, to neo-Nazism. He starts to learn more, about that. And the cancer starts to spread. And he starts to, adopt neo-Nazi views.

He eventually gets, a swastika tattoo. And then it goes, so far down the line, that he's a, he's a full, fledged neo-Nazi, that he commits, a hate crime. And in the midst, of his downward spiral, in the midst of this cancer, growing within him, his mother, is watching this happen. And this isn't, the son that she raised. This isn't, who she brought, into this world. And he slowly, starts to get corrupted.

And finally, there's this scene, in the movie, where everything, is unraveling. They had this huge argument. And in the midst, of her grief, she says, I am ashamed, that you came, out of my body. And that is so, picturesque, of what is happening, here in Genesis. That the cancer, of sin has spread. It has corrupted man, so deeply, that God, regrets that he, even made man.

Man who he placed, his image in. That he placed, value and worth, and beauty, and goodness in. Has taken that good gift, and has corrupted it. And corrupted the rest, of creation. That he regrets it. And it also says, that it grieved him, to his heart.

And that might seem, foreign to some of us. Because some of us, grow up with this world view, that God is this, distant deity, in the sky. That he doesn't have emotions, that he isn't really involved, that he doesn't really care. And that is so, far from the view, that we have in the scriptures. That God is intimately involved, that he deeply cares, and he has emotions. And that he is grieved, by our sin.

He is grieved by, the corruption, of humanity. And that grief, is followed up by, a picture of judgment. That follows in verse 7 and 8. So the Lord said, I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the land. Man, and animals, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens. For I am sorry, that I have made them.

But Noah found favor, in the eyes of the Lord. Now for the rest of our time, the rest of this story, these are the two pictures. A picture of judgment, and a picture of redemption. And we'll get more, to the picture of redemption, next week. The rest of our story, mostly sits in, this picture of judgment. Which is something, that our culture, is greatly, they're greatly against.

We naturally, just don't, we don't like, the idea of judgment. In this story, there's two things, that stick out, that our culture, is very much opposed to. The first one, is that, he Judges all of creation. It's not just humanity. He Judges, everything. And that animals, go down with the flood.

That is something, that our culture has, a problem with. But the bigger problem, that our culture has, is that God, that God would judge sinners. That he would bring judgment, on humanity. I'll tackle that first one, fairly quickly. I don't have a lot of time, to spend on it. The reason why, God Judges all of creation, including the animals, is because God has given humanity, dominion over animals.

And that our actions, affect everything. And the same way, that nowadays, corporate greed, can affect, drinking water, and rivers, that has for the last, hundred years, our actions, on this world, affect all of creation, because God has given, that to us. So that when God, is going to wipe clean, the earth, he's going to wipe clean, everything, and start fresh. Everyone gets, the judgment. The second cultural objection, that we have, and this is natural to us, in our culture, is that we don't like, the idea that God Judges, sinners. We don't like the God, we don't like the idea of judgment, period.

And this is mostly, I would say, hear this, it's mostly a western objection, that us as westerners, are the ones who mostly, have a problem with God, being a judge. And I would even argue, and push a little farther, it's mostly white westerners, that have a problem, with judgment. And the reason why, is because we are, largely, shielded from injustice. That we have, as a culture, really experienced, the kind of injustice, that the rest of the world does. Because when the rest of the world, comes across, pictures of judgment, like in, in cultures, where towns, and villages, where there are people that come in, the government doesn't stop them, and they come and take away children, and sell them into slavery, they come and kill people, they read passages like this, they read the judgment of God, not as something, that they don't like, but as a comfort.

Because it is comforting, that God checks sin, that He Judges, those who do evil. So it's a natural objection, that we have, that the rest of the world, just doesn't have, that God Judges sinners. Now I think there's a part of us, that really gets on board with this. I think that, being part of, being made in the image of God, there's a little bit in us, that has an objection, or at least has, that at least supports, God judging sin. I think for mostly, the one sin in our culture, that people are on board with, that should be judged, is murder. Currently there's a case, in Colorado, where it looks like, it's alleged, but it looks like a guy, killed his wife, his pregnant wife, and then also killed, his two daughters.

And as this case, is starting to get momentum, people are getting enraged. There's a part of them, that wants justice. And that comes from, being made in the image of God. That if you actually, don't believe in God, there's not really a grounds, for justice, it's survival of the fittest. But in this, in this, this aspect, that we're made, in the image of God, that has not been, stamped out by our culture, we actually, want justice to happen.

The problem is, is we just limit it to that. We just take murder seriously, we don't take, everything else seriously. We largely don't take, sin as a whole, seriously. But God does. Because sin, corrupts. It corrupts our relationship, with God, it corrupts one another.

Take jealousy, and envy, that I talked about earlier. When you are envious, of your neighbor, what you have done, in those moments, is you have questioned, the goodness of God. God has provided for us, richly, he has given us life. And what you are saying is, what you've given me, is not enough. So much so, that I'm, I'm angered with you, and I am jealous of my neighbor.

And there's hatred towards God, and there's hatred towards neighbor, in that moment. And God does not take that lightly. That corruption spreads, in often really, evil ways. That lust is a big deal. Because what you were doing, when you were lusting, is that you were saying, God, you don't satisfy enough. Union with you, is not enough.

I need someone else. Or maybe you're married, and it's like, the spouse you've given me, she's not enough. He's not enough. I want to unite myself, with someone else. We do this over, and over, and over again. If you actually look at, the sin that is deep within us, and you follow, and trace it out, there is corruption everywhere, against God, and against man.

And God is not indifferent towards that. But in those moments, we have to see that we are, committing cosmic treason, as Chet said last week. We are sinning against, a holy and perfect king. And sin has to be, paid for. And that is where, this picture of judgment comes from. Picks up in verse 11, of chapter 6, says, Now the earth was corrupt, in God's sight.

And the earth was filled, with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh, had corrupted their way, on the earth. And God said to Noah, I am determined, to make an end, of all flesh. For the earth is filled, with violence through them. Let's pause for a second.

I've been thinking, through this. This is an undeveloped thought, so I'm not hanging, a ton of stuff on this. The more I have read Genesis, and the more that I'm studying it, this time around, the more I'm starting to realize, God hates violence. Hates it. And it shows up here, and it shows up throughout, the Old Testament. I don't have anything, to hang that on right now.

I don't have a complete thought, on that. I'm just noticing, that he hates it. And that I'm trying to, I'm trying to, as I'm studying this, and I hope as a church family, we can do the same thing, and looking at this, and seeing the implications of that, and what stirs in us, that we might, what stirs violence in us, what isn't good. I think that's something, that we should wait into. Like I said, not a complete thought, I just want you to feel the weight, of what the text is actually saying. He says, behold, I will destroy them, with the earth.

You skip down to verse 17. He says, for behold, I will bring a flood of waters, upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, in which is the breath of life, under heaven. Everything, that is on the earth, shall die. So he makes this pronouncement, and then he tells Noah, to build an ark. An ark, is a giant ship. This is going to weather the floods, that are coming.

And the picture of judgment, that is happening here, is a reversal, of what happened at creation. That in Genesis 1, God pulls back the waters, and land appears. And what he is doing is, is he's releasing the waters, and bringing judgment on the earth. And when this comes, he wants Noah to be ready. So Noah builds an ark.

And he gives the rest of chapter 6, some instructions, on how to build this ark, in measurements that we understand. It's about 510 feet long. It's 51 feet tall. It's 84 feet wide. It's going to be three decks. He tells them specifically, make it out of gopher wood.

We don't know what gopher wood is, but it was good enough for the ship. Then he tells them, that Noah and his wife, and his sons, and their wives, their family, can board this ark. And then he has a plan, to preserve animal lines. He says in 619, and every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort, in the ark, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. So he tells them, take one male, one female of every animal, and they're going to, board the ark with you.

In chapter 7, we get some additional instructions, where he's going to give some extra animals, they can use, because they're going to have, some sacrifice that happens, when they get off the ark. But we'll cover that, next week. Then he tells them, to store as much food, as you're going to need, because you're going to be on this, ark for quite a while. They're on the ark, for about a year. And then it's time. Picks up, and chapter 6 ends, with Noah did this, he did all the Lord commanded him, and then we skip to chapter 7, verse 11.

It says, In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of that month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep, burst forth. So all the aquifers, all the water underneath, it burst forth. And the windows of the heavens were opened, and rain fell upon the earth, for forty days, and for forty nights. As the waters underneath, come forth, the waters above, fall. And this is the part of the story, that gets sanitized. This is the part of the story, that we don't want to stare at, that we don't want, we want to ignore.

It is not a happy, and cute picture. It is a picture, of God's judgment, being poured out, on the earth. It is one of the scariest, and saddest moments, of the entire history of the world. It is meant to, it is meant to shock you, at God's wrath being poured out, on the earth. That for forty days, and for forty nights, God drowns the earth, in judgment. And then chapter seven, just ends.

It says, only Noah was left, and those who were with him, on the ark. And the waters prevailed, on the earth, a hundred and fifty days. And it just has, a bleak ending, to part one of the story. It is descriptive, and it is painful. It's a painful picture, of God's judgment. And there's probably, a lot of questions, that are swirling, as you read this.

But I think, there's one question, in particular, that rises to the top. And that is, why Noah? Why was Noah chosen? Why did he, and his family, get to board the ark? The text, answers this, in part, we see it later, answered in full. It says, in chapter six, verse eight, that, but Noah found favor, in the eyes of the Lord.

These are the generations, of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked, with God. And some have looked at this, and they have taken this, to say, well, Noah must have been, the good God. He must have been, the good God. The rest of the world, was evil.

The text says, that he was righteous, that he was blameless. And on its surface, you might get that, but the more, that you dig in this, you see, that's actually not the case. That's not the full picture, of what's happening here. Because Noah was a sinner. Noah, we're going to see that clearly, in the second half of the story, next week. Noah, was a sinner.

Noah, deserved judgment. So why, did Noah get chosen? Why was Noah spared? And the answer that we get, in the Bible, is by grace, through faith. Noah, Noah, was chosen, by grace, through faith. Hebrews 11, 7 says, by faith, this is the New Testament, looking back, by faith, Noah, being warned by God, concerning events, as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark, for the saving, of his household.

Faith, is what set Noah apart. He trusted God, and it was God's grace, in him, and through him, that ultimately, saved him. That ultimately, Noah finds, unmerited favor. He didn't earn this favor. God, shows him favor, that he did not earn. Faith in him, through God, is what saves him.

And this isn't just good news, because it preserves, the seed of Eve, it preserves the line of Jesus, who will come and save the whole world. That is good news. We will talk more about that next week. It is good news for us, right now, because you, and me, everyone in this room, and everyone who's ever lived, we're in the same boat, as Noah. Noah, we deserve God's wrath. We deserve the flood.

But because of Jesus, we get the ark. Jesus became our ark. And the idea that we deserve wrath, that's for some of you, that's going to be frustrating. You might ask the question, why do we deserve wrath? And it's because we have the same picture of humanity, that is true for them, and their time for us. When it says that the Lord saw, that the wickedness of man, was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart, was only evil continually, that is us.

That did not stop at Noah. That continues through. We see this next week, as we'll cover it in chapter 8. After they get off the ark, this is what God says. He says, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart, is evil from his youth. That post-flood, this is still true.

We are still corrupted. You see that in the Psalms, when David picks up on this, he says, for there is no truth in their mouth, their inmost self is destruction, their throat is an open grave, they flatter with their tongue. We see this in the New Testament, when Jesus is teaching, on the Sermon on the Mount, when he says, for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander, over and over and over again. We see throughout the whole Bible, that because of Adam and Eve, because they sinned against God, they brought corruption into this world, and we inherit that corruption.

We inherit that nature. It is what we do. It is the reason why, when football started yesterday, that we can't just enjoy the good gift of football, that it has given us. No, we have to actually elevate it to an idol, and worship it. It's the reason why, we can't be happy for others, we get to be, we move into being quickly envious. It's the reason why, that when you get slighted, you want to retaliate immediately, whether it's on Facebook, or it's with your fist, because we are naturally children of violence.

We inherit this sinful nature. It is what we do. We inherit corruption, and that costs two things. We see that it costs God grief, that God grieves over our corruption, and that's not just a Noah's time thing, that's even for the people of God, that somehow, mysteriously, God can look at us, those of us who are in Christ, and see the perfect record of Jesus. We don't have to earn His favor. He can look at us and see Christ, and at the same time, He can look at the church, and in Ephesians 4 say, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

That our sin, emotionally, affects God, still. It costs God grief. Ultimately, it costs judgment. Our sin, costs judgment. Somebody has to foot the bill. And the good news, of Jesus, is that the finished work, of Jesus on the cross, means that we, we get, through faith in Christ, that undeserved favor.

That we, deserve, I want you to feel this, we deserve the flood. That's what we, that's what we deserve, because of our sin, we deserve the flood, of God's wrath, poured out on us. But Jesus, goes to the cross, and He has the full cup, of God's wrath, poured out on Him. And, through His death, and conquering death, through the resurrection, we, get life. We get the ark. That's what 1st Peter, he plays on this picture, and relating to baptism, in 1st Peter 3.

He talks about baptism, and comparing it back to Noah. That because of what Jesus, has done for us, in conquering death, we pass through the ark, safely from death, into life. In about a month, we're going to celebrate baptisms. This is going to be a picture, of people who are dead in sin, and are alive in Christ. And the picture is, is that we were spared, we get the ark, we get Jesus, and we get life with Him. So as we sit in this story, I know it's uncomfortable.

And as we discuss this in groups, I know it's not, this is going to be challenging. But if you are in Christ, you get this picture. You deserve judgment, you get mercy. We deserve wrath, we get the ark. Band's going to come up. I don't want us, to just walk away from this, I want us to sit in it.

And I want you to hear this, that if you, if you are not a Christian, meaning that you have, maybe you've been around church, maybe you've been connected, maybe you've been coming, but you have not given your life, completely over to God. It is Jesus plus the world, it is Jesus plus something else. If that is you, I want you to hear this story. It's uncomfortable, but it's real. He's not going to destroy the earth, with water again, but wrath is coming. And we need to feel that.

And the good news of the gospel, is that we had, the God of the universe, who took on flesh, who came to take that wrath for us. And our plea for you, as a church, is that you would choose the ark. And that you would, have your life hidden in Christ. That you would believe in him, that you would lay down your life. And that you would get to experience, the goodness of the gospel, in Jesus. That is our hope.

If you are a Christian, I want this story to sober us. I want us to feel the weight, of the judgment, because I want us to feel, the weight of our own sin. Because I feel like, some of us get into a mode, of not taking our own sin, seriously. We don't think it's that big of a deal. And the reality is, that sin is a very big deal. But also, so is grace.

So is his mercy, that we get to lean into. And that's what we celebrate, with the Lord's Supper. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread, and he broke it. And he said, this is my body, that was broken for you. He took the cup, which is the cup of the new covenant. And he said, this is my blood shed for you.

He said, as often as you eat, and drink this, you proclaim my death, until I return. So Christian, in this moment, I want you, as the music is playing, just to sit for a moment. I want you to reflect, on the seriousness of our sin.

Mill City 8/26/18 Mill City 8/26/18

Cain and Abel

Transcript

Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. I want to talk a little bit about H.G. Wells before we get started today. We're walking through the book of Genesis together, and I think this helps us kind of set up our time today.

H.G. Wells was an author who was born in the late 1800s, lived through half of the 1900s, and he wrote a lot of science fiction. He actually kind of envisioned in his writing airplanes, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television, and something resembling the World Wide Web. I don't know what that something was. I got that from Wikipedia, just trying to give you all background on H.G. Wells.

But he would always write about like a utopian future when he would write science fiction. We always got bigger and better and more wonderful and more amazing. And so this is a quote from his book. He wrote histories as well and kind of social commentary. And this is in a short history of the world. He wrote this in 1937.

Again, he lived in England. He wrote this. He said, Can we doubt that can we doubt that presently our race will more than realize our boldest imaginations, that it will achieve unity and peace, and that our children will live in a world made more splendid and lovely than any palace or garden that we know, going on from strength to strength in an ever-widening circle of achievement? What man has done? The little triumphs of his present state form the prelude to the things that man has yet to do. So he's saying he's looking at the world, he's looking at history, and he's saying, Isn't it just going to get better and better and better and more beautiful?

And the gardens and palaces we know now are nothing compared to where all of our children will live in the future. Now, if you're a student of history, you know that living in England in 1937, this wasn't about to be realized. World War II was about to plunge the world into conflict and pain and strife. And so this is a quote from his book that he wrote in 1946, which is the same year that he died, called A Mind at the End of Its Tether. And a tether is like a leash. So he's saying he's at the end of his rope.

He's about to become completely unhinged. And he says this, So in less than 10 years, this idea that everything would go on from beauty to beauty, and everything would get more wonderful. He sees the world plunged into World War II, and he just says, We're done. I can't believe that this is what humanity does. And as we're looking in Genesis chapter 4 today, and if you want to go ahead and grab your Bibles, it'll be in Genesis chapter 4. We're going to see how this continues.

So what we talked about last week was the fall of humanity, where Adam and Eve rebel against God, and sin enters the world. And we're going to see that it does exactly what H.G. Wells saw. That it goes from a beautiful garden, and it goes from God's good design, all the things that could be, and it turns into ever-increasing evil. That that's kind of as Genesis plays out, there's this two stories that run side by side. That we see that God designed the world beautiful, and all of a sudden there's this current of sin, and the world's descending into chaos, and evil, and hatred, and sexual sin, and violence.

And at the same time, God begins to weave next to that story, this idea that he is going to bring redemption, and he's going to bring hope. And that's what we're seeing beginning in Genesis, and it carries throughout the entire Old Testament. And so what H.G. Wells got to see on a massive scale, we're going to get to see kind of the beginnings of, on a personal scale, in Genesis chapter 4, as we study the story of Cain and Abel. And I have to go ahead and get this out of the way. I have an uncle named Abel, and he has messed me up on being able to call this Cain and Abel.

And so if that bothers you the entire time, I want to preemptively apologize. But I tried. I tried when I was working on this to say Cain and Abel, and I kept going back and forth between Cain and Abel. And there's no telling what's going to come out, but mostly it comes out Abel when I say it, and it's spelled that way, and my uncle talked me into it. So I can't not read Abel when I say it.

So let's pray for our time, and then we'll get started in Genesis chapter 4. God, we ask that as we get to study, in our brief time this morning, these two brothers, and this evil sin that tears this family apart, we pray that you would help us to see ourselves, see our sin, and have you intervene on our behalf before it gets out of control, and before we stand before you, covered by our sin rather than covered by Christ. And so we pray that you would help us to see this clearly today. And we love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Chapter 4, verse 1. It's on page 2. If you have one of the blue Bibles, it's probably very near to page 2 if you have any other Bible whatsoever. But if you don't own a Bible, we got these. We have a pile of them. We want you to take one home.

We want you to read it often. That's our gift to you. So it says, Now Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. Now this is really encouraging to be the way that Genesis chapter 4 starts because Genesis chapter 3 walks us through the story where Adam and Eve sin. They rebel against God. They're cast out of the garden.

And all of the good things that they had have kind of begun to erode and be broken and fall apart. And so it's beautiful to see that they, when Cain is born, she says, No, God helped me. That there's still some faith. There's still some connection to God in this family, even in the midst of sin, that Adam and Eve haven't completely run from God. But she, in faith, responds and says, No, I've gotten a man.

God's blessing me, and humanity is continuing with the help of the Lord. And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. So Cain does what Adam was told to do, which is tend a garden, cultivate, be one who works in the soil. And it says that Abel tends sheep. He's a keeper of sheep.

In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. I want to pause and just give you a little quick thing about the way that Hebrews write, the Jewish people write, when we're getting into these stories in Genesis. And we'll see this throughout. But the way we tend to write stories is we set the stage. We give setting. We give everything's in chronological order.

Or if you do it out of chronological order, when you mention it, you say, Now this happened prior to what I was just telling you about, but we always put it in chronological order. But they don't always do that. They much more often will explain things thematically, and they don't give you information that they don't think really applies to the story. So when it says, In the course of time, we have no clue how old they are, how long this has been. We're told later in Genesis that Adam and Eve lived for about 900 years, which we're going to discuss more because some of you are like, Wait, that sounds made up.

We're going to discuss more, but we believe they were designed perfectly, and that sin hadn't worked its way into the gene pool the way that it has now. So they were designed to live for eternity. They fall into sin, and then sin enters the world and begins to corrode, begins to destroy, but they don't immediately have the shorter lifespans that we see post-flood. So Spencer will get more into that next week. So they had a lot of children.

They had more children. We don't know how long it's been. That's all I'm saying, is that these guys could be like 20. It could be 250. We don't know, and that'll show up later as more characters get added in, and you're suddenly going, Wait, I thought there was just four people. It was Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel.

Abel died, so I thought the character grid got dropped to three, but then there's just other people showing up, and so I'm just trying to help you see like this has been an indeterminate amount of time so that it's less confusing later when we hit some places that are going to be a little confusing. So that was confusing, and I hope it helps. All right. In the course of time, this is verse 3, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. Okay, so we see worship. We see Cain and Abel worshiping the Lord.

They bring to him, and we don't know exactly how they brought it to him, where they brought it. If they can see him, we don't understand exactly how this worked, where God related to them, but they bring to him offerings, that there's this aspect of worship. There's this aspect of them coming to the Lord and acknowledging his place above them. So they bring him an offering, and Cain brings an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. That phrasing is going to be important in a second. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard.

So we're told that they both bring an offering, and that God appreciates, has regard for Abel and his offering, but not for Cain and his offering. And I've heard people try to explain this in different ways, as to sheep is better than fruit, and some different things like that. And I don't think that's actually what the text is showing us. I don't think that's what it's highlighting for us, because one of the things that we see is it doesn't say that God had regard for his offering, or his offering. It says for Abel and his offering, for Cain and his offering. The person comes first.

So that God's looking at the person, not just what they brought. He's looking at the inside. And one of the clues that we have in the text is that we're told that Cain brought some of the fruit of the ground. He brought of the fruit of the ground, but that Abel brought the firstborn and their fat portions. Meaning that Abel brought the best he had. That he, as soon as his sheep were born, he brought those to God.

The ones that you would be the most excited about. The first paycheck in the way it goes for sheep keepers. Like the first thing he could have gotten, he brought it to the Lord and said, this is yours. Like without you, none of this happens. And it just kind of says that Cain brought some of what he had. It says that Abel brought the fat portions, meaning the best of what he had.

And so in that, we're getting a clue kind of into Abel's heart and into Cain's heart. And we see that God looks at Abel and he accepts what Abel does. He has regard for what Abel does, but he doesn't have regard for what Cain does. And then we see that God's looking at their heart and we get a clue next as to the fact that Cain's heart is off. It's strayed from what it would seem with him bringing an offering. And I'll show this to you.

It says, verse six, oh, verse five, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell. That means he showed it. Some of you, you have a poker face, you have the ability to be angry and look happy. You have the ability to be upset and frustrated. Some of you do not.

Cain did not. Some of you, something bad happens and your face turns bright red. One of the tricks that I've always had is to just always look angry and tell people that you're happy and you can get around it. So Cain's face falls. He looks visibly upset. He is, he's very angry.

He's furious. And so this is a clue as to Cain's heart. So let's just think about this for a second. If Cain was genuinely, I'm here to worship. I'm here because God is glorious. I'm here because he's valuable.

I'm here because he's holy. I'm here because I love him. And when he brought his offering, if God said, Cain, this isn't right. Cain, you haven't done this well. And we don't know exactly how he displayed that he had no regard for it, but he does. You would assume that Cain would be hurt, that he would be sad, that he would be mournful.

But that his desire would be for the relationship with God. His desire would be for this to work well. His desire, so it would draw him closer to God. But what we see is that he's livid. He's furious that this would happen. And so we get a picture as to Cain's heart and that it starts to seem as if Cain really, his offering wasn't a genuine love for God.

His offering wasn't a genuine respect for God, a holiness, holding up his worthiness, but that his offer was something else. That what he really wanted was something else. And actually, I think in Cain and Abel, we see the beginnings of true worship, true faith. We're actually told in Hebrews chapter 11 that Abel has true faith and religious worship, religious faith. And I'll explain the difference there because some of you are like, wait, I thought we were like a religion. The concept behind religion, as we talk about it often here, is I will do these things that God wants me to do and therefore God will love me, God will bless me, God will owe me.

That religion is this idea that I'm going to be a good person, I'm going to do what I'm supposed to, I'm going to show up on Sundays and if those people keep saying join a group, then I'll join a group, but God better make my finances work out, he better make my relationships work out, he better make my kids quit acting like their father. He better, he better, he better, he owes me. That's why when something bad happens to religious people, they'll get so mad. Something bad happened to Cain, he got furious and some of us have seen this in ourselves and in other people where something bad happens, you lose your job and you say, where are you God?

You owe me. How on earth could this happen to me? Because your belief is I did the stuff. I'm one of the good ones. I'm not like those other people that I'm one of the good ones. You owe me and that's what we see in Cain's heart.

I've heard a story to help kind of picture this and I really appreciate this image in my head. And so there's a king who has a beautiful kingdom and on different times he would allow people in his kingdom to come visit him and that sort of thing. And so they announced to him that there's a farmer who lives in his kingdom that's come to see him. And he allows the farmer to come in and the farmer comes in and he says, oh king, my king, I have a farm on your land and because of your kingdom I've been well protected and well guarded and free to farm. I wanted to bring to you this carrot. It's the biggest, prettiest carrot I think I'll ever grow.

I grew it. I was so excited. I just, when I was pulling it out of the dirt it just kept coming and coming and it was so bright orange and so carrot-y that I just wanted to share it with you. I just wanted to give it to you, my king, in appreciation for who you are and what you've done because I don't think I'll ever have another carrot like this one. And the king looks at the man and he sees his heart and he sees his love and he's touched by this and the king says, I actually know where your farm is and I own all the land around it and I want you to go speak with, and he tells him what official to speak with and he says, I want to double your track of land because we need more people like you in our kingdom and the farmer's just blown away.

That's not at all what he was hoping for. It's not at all what he imagined. Well, there's an official of the king who sees this entire interaction and he thinks, double your land for a carrot. So the next day, this official actually breeds horses and he brings in the stallion and he says, oh king, my king, I breed horses and this is the finest horse I think we'll ever sire. This is the finest horse I think I'll ever have. It's the most beautiful horse and I wanted to give it to you, my king, because you're so lovely and wonderful and amazing.

The king looks at his official and he can see right through him. He sees his heart and the king says, thank you. Please take that horse to my stable. And he just waits and the guy's frozen in place and he can see his face turning red and he's like, and the king goes, oh, is this about the carrot? You see, you're confused. The farmer was giving the carrot to me but you were giving yourself the horse.

See, the whole point of turning over the horse was just to receive back. It was just an investment. It was just for what he was going to be owed on the other end of it and I think we see that interaction playing out with Cain and Abel that Abel is overjoyed and appreciative towards God and so he brings his first fruits and he brings the best he has and he just says, God, thank you. Abel doesn't even talk in the story. We just see pictures of what he's like and that Cain was bringing the fruit to God but he wasn't really giving the fruit to God. It wasn't really appreciation for God.

It wasn't really a love for God. It was a desire to receive back, a desire to something. Something in Cain is for his own benefit to Cain's furious. And so we see how God responds. So God has no regard for Cain's offering but he cares about Cain.

So it says, so Cain was very angry and his face fell. Now verse 6, the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you but you must rule over it.

So God, as best he can, tries to intervene with Cain. And he says, Cain, if you do well, if you change, if your heart changes, won't this work? Won't this be beautiful? Won't this be good? And he says, but if you don't, if you don't do well, if you don't change, sin is crouching at your door. One of the things I want us to see very early on is that God expects Cain.

He says, you must rule over it. God believes that Cain can change. God believes that Cain can master his sin. God believes that Cain is morally responsible for his decisions and his attitude and his heart. We have culturally bought into the idea that this is what I'm like and this is how I was born and people all the time will say things like, well, you know, I'm just the type of person who, and so Cain can say, well, I'm just the type of person who gets really angry when things don't go my way and God steps in and looks and says, yeah, and you're the type of person who needs to change that. You're the type of person who needs to master that.

You're the type of person who needs to not be overcome with that. You're the type of person who needs to know that that will destroy you. Well, I'm Italian, so I yell and you're the type of Italian who needs to stop. Well, I'm this, I'm that, my family just always, my dad, well, you're the type of person who needs to change that, who needs to, who needs to, and God's inviting him to him. It's not just, do it on your own, it's not just be better, try harder, but it's Cain, come on. This can be different.

We can work differently. You can change. And I want you to see the seriousness of sin. He says it's crouching at the door. It's crouching at the door. I am, out my front door, the way it's set up, on a regular basis for a couple weeks there there was a spider, and he was pretty big, but he kept setting up a spider web right in front of my front door.

And I'm really intelligent, so I walked through this like 17 times. Like I just opened the door, and I'd be like, oh God, and I would see the spider the night before, so I'd be like, it's on me. You know, I'm like, I'm sure my neighbors thought there was something wrong with me, because there's nothing that makes you look crazier than you walking through a spider web other people can't see. You know, you open the door, and you're like, peeling at your face and stuff, and it's like, hey, it's good to see y'all. Y'all hunting to work? Me too.

But I can just imagine the spider consistently, like he's hanging out, setting the web up again, and his friend's like, dude, are you doing that again? He's like, yeah, I'm going to eat like a king. If I can just catch one of these things that keeps walking in and out of this house, I won't have to make a web again for years. His spider friend's like, you're an idiot. And it just never worked. He never got me.

But, that's what sin's doing. It's at our door, laying a trap to destroy us, and we think it's like the spider that actually can't get us. Let me tell you something, if that spider was the size of a tiger, I would have remembered that web was there and I wouldn't have been walking out there. And so often, we think that sin is so small, it's so little, it really can't get to us. But sin's desire is against us.

It's contrary to us. It wants to harm us. You ever watch a movie and there's been a bad guy the whole time and then something happens in the movie and they decide to kind of team up with the bad guy? They're going to work together for a little bit? And how many of us when we're watching that are like, hey, moron, that's been the bad guy the whole time. I don't think he's actually joined your team.

That's sin. That we're like, no, no, no, we're cool. We're friends. This will work out well. And it's like, no, it's desire is contrary to you. It wants to destroy you.

But too many of us think we can have sin as a pet. Too many of us think, yeah, well, I'm doing pretty good. I've got all this, but this one, this one, I don't really want Jesus messing with. This one is really kind of, I'm working on it, but you just say that, you're not. And you just kind of feel like, but sin destroys us. Y'all remember a while back when Roy, of Siegfried and Roy, got attacked by a tiger?

It mauled him. And everybody was shocked. But it's like, bro, that was a tiger. That's a tiger. They don't, there's a reason why you can't just have pet tigers. Because they can do that.

Like, the risk reward on owning a tiger is not worth it. I mean, some of y'all got a dog, and it's like a sweet little dog, and you're like, this dog's never bit anybody. It's like, that dog's got teeth. I had, you know how many, every time I've been bitten by a dog, it's been bitten by a dog that doesn't bite people. Helping somebody move, no, this dog never bites anybody. I turned my back on it, it bit the fool out of me.

I was like, I'm suing, everybody's going to penitentiary. And so many of us think we have this pet sin that we're cool with. And God grabs Cain as best he can, and he says, if you don't change this, sin's at your door, and it will destroy you, but you have to rule over it. And so many of you, I hope you can hear that this morning. I hope you can take the moment to see that in God's word and see God looking at you and saying, it's at your door. And if you don't rule over it, it is not your friend.

It is contrary to you. It will destroy you. Verse eight, Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Okay, so when it says Cain spoke to his brother Abel, the best we can guess is that the text put that in there to help us see the premeditation of this. That he was drawing him out.

There's some kind of, he was luring him. That he gets him in the field where nobody is and he just kills him. Now I want to show you something interesting we learn about religious activity. I want to show you something interesting that we learn about what happens when our approach to God is I want you to, I'm doing these things so that you'll love me. I'm doing these things so that we'll be good. Is that if you're approaching God not just for him but for you to be one of the good ones, do you know what that means?

You need some people to be the bad ones. If hard work is what saves you, then you need some people to be lazy because if everybody works as hard as you do, you're not winning. If religious activity is what saves you, then you need some people to be heathens and infidels. You need them. And so what, Cain kills Abel. He doesn't change his heart.

He gets rid of the competition. My offering will be the best offering if Abel doesn't show up. And I also think that for most of us we think this was a really quick turnaround. Cain's very angry and then he just murders somebody. But see, the text told us this is what sin does.

We do things that we don't think we would do quicker than we think we would do them. That we're actually more evil, more quickly than we believe is possible. Sigmund Freud, who will not get quoted often from this stage because he's a nut and most of what he said is slap crazy. There's a quote where he gets this really, really right and he agrees with the Bible and so since he agrees with the Bible we're going to read this. He says this in civilization and its discontents. Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love who simply defend themselves if they are attacked but that of a powerful measure of desire for aggression has to be reckoned as a part of their instinctual endowment.

What he says is there's actually aggression in them. They're not just kind. The result is that their neighbor is to them not only a possible helper or a sexual object but also a temptation to them to gratify their aggressiveness on him. To exploit his capacity for work without recompense that means to have slaves make them work don't pay them to use him sexually without his consent to seize his possessions to humiliate him to cause him pain to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus which is the Latin phrase man is a wolf. And then he says who has the courage to dispute it in the face of all the evidence in his own life and in history.

Without his consent to seize his possessions to humiliate him to cause him pain to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus which is the Latin phrase man is a wolf. And then he says who has the courage to dispute it in the face of all the evidence in his own life and in history. He says who on earth could stand up and say that this isn't true given how history works and how your life works. There is sin

In us that once Adam and Eve sinned they delivered it over to their children and that Cain and Abel were not sinless but that it was in them. I also want us to see that what happens with Cain is he has he has anger inside of him and then it leads to actions outside of him that he that he goes from an internal sin

To an external sin and so many of us will say to ourselves well this isn't that bad because I'm not really doing anything I'm just thinking about stuff. Sure I've sat at my desk for the last hour running through what the conversation would be like if I told my boss everything I think about him what he would say what I would say what his little face would look like his beady eyes when little tears came out of it

When he finally heard everything that was true about it like I sure I hadn't really been working I've been doing this I've been nurturing bitterness but I haven't actually acted on it I just thought about choking him I wouldn't ever actually choke him these are just fantasies I'm not actually cheating on my spouse it's all in my head and see it's when it was in his head that God grabbed Cain and said

Change because it goes from here to here way quicker than we think almost everybody who's done big unthinkable sins if you'd have stopped them prior to it and asked them at some point along that road will you ever do this they'd say no I'd never do that and then they do most of us if we're honest

Have things that we've done in our past that we don't fully understand why we did it and that we if you'd asked us beforehand will you ever do that you would say no I would never do that I'm not that kind of person but the truth is we are outside of God intervening on our behalf 1 Peter 2 11 says beloved I urge

You as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions that's desires or lust of the flesh which wage war against your soul James 1 15 says then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death I have two sons and I fight with one of them

The other one's an infant but I could totally take him if we got to fight him I fight with the three year old and if we ever got in a real fight like if he ever just you know pushed it too far and we had to really fight I think I would win you guys here's what James 1 15 just said it says we have desire that conceives and gives birth

To sin and then sin when it's full grown brings death now this is talking on a spiritual level that when we sin the end result of that is death that we deserve punishment but I think it also gives us a picture of the fact that some of us have some baby sins that right now would be way easier to get rid

Of some of us have little sins that are starting to creep up a little bit of bitterness towards somebody a little bit of anger a little bit of frustration a little bit of jealousy a little bit of and we're starting to tell ourselves well it's not that big a deal it's just a little bit I haven't really done anything

Yet a little bit of lust a little bit of temptation you see when it's full grown you're a slave and it's a murder the desire that the desires in us do not always lead us down the right path this is why when people will say things like well I prayed about it and I just don't feel like it's wrong

We'll be something we'll say hey do you see what the Bible says like that's a sin yeah I know the Bible says that I prayed about it I just don't feel bad it's like do you know how far that means you're

Disconnected from the Lord that proved nothing to anyone people are doing something simple and they say it just feels right it's like right because your passions are at war against your soul

Your flesh your desires are contrary to you that sin wants to own you that ultimately what is good for you is that you would have Jesus and that you would have holiness and that you would have love and peace and no sin and that our desires and sin's desire is to destroy

Us and to derail us and we're like it feels good can't be bad it's like that's cute it's not in the bible this is how someone goes from jealousy to lying from covetousness to stealing from anger to abuse to murder from lust to rape

To adultery this is why every time they interview somebody who's just done something ridiculous their friends and family say that wasn't the tina I knew no he was always so quiet and nice so often that happens and it's because sin is at work in

Us and it is growing and if we don't run to the Lord and seek to get rid of it all of us are capable of doing things we never thought we'd be capable of doing Tim Keller explains that one

Of the things that we do with children is we often develop fear and pride in them that we develop it in them that we'll say things to kids like well you don't want to be one

Of those bad people you don't want to be like them and go to the penitentiary and so what we've done right there is we've said we've developed pride you want to be one of and you pick whatever kind of

Little cut down thing you want to use to try to develop fear and pride but this is how we train children so often and he says that for a lot of us fear and pride are our primary motivation not worship

Not love for the Lord not God's grace but fear and pride and he said this is how somebody who for most of their life has behaved really well and been really a good worker suddenly embezzles thousands of dollars because they were operating

On fear and pride and fear and pride for a long time kept them in check but at some point when they were afraid of losing their job or when they were afraid of what was going to happen if they didn't have the money or they

Were prideful to let people know that they were failing suddenly fear and pride took over and led them so far into sin and so many of us have these things that we are just slowly letting grow and then at some point they tip

Over and we run headlong into sin so let's see how God reacts and this plays out so similarly to Genesis 3 and there's brokenness and God shows up to talk God shows up to ask questions and he does he asks questions here even though

God knows the answer it's like your mom when she found out that you snuck out last night or that you went to a different place from where she thought where you told her you were going to go and then she says where were you last

Night and you're like you know we were at Mark's house but where were you were you just at Mark's house oh well she starts asking more questions she already knows the answer and your story starts not making a whole lot

Of sense that's what we're going to have play out with God and Abel no God and Cain I forgot Abel died in the last verse 9 then the Lord said to Cain where is Abel your brother and he said I do not know am I my brother's keeper oh am I

In charge of Abel all of a sudden I thought you liked him better than me anyway now I'm the king of Abel am I my brother's keeper verse 10 and the Lord said what have you done the voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the

Ground and now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand seems as if Cain used his cultivating abilities and tools to bury his brother if not

At least his brother blood has drained into the ground and his body somewhere else 12 when you work for when you work the ground it shall no longer yield to you its strength you

Shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth Cain said to the Lord my punishment is greater than I can bear behold you have driven me today away

From the ground and from your face I shall be hidden I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on earth and whoever finds

Me will kill me real quick this is why I did that age stuff earlier who's going to find him and kill him there's two options

Anyone in the future he just thinks I'll be a wanderer anywhere I go anybody can come find me and kill me most likely he's

Talking about his own brothers his own father because there's been some time it's most likely his parents have continued to have children and

He's just saying I've harmed my brother and now that this is known someone is going to kill me I don't want us to

See the heart of sin here Cain is angry and God gives him a chance to repent God comes to him and says you

Need to change your attitude does he no so he's not willing to listen to God on the front end God comes to him

After it the action after he murders his brother and gives him a chance to come clean to be honest to confess does he

Know when does Cain speak up when there's punishment and what does Cain say this is unfair it's unfair what you've done to me

And don't you know someone might kill me Cain who just introduced murder to the world now says it would be unjust if someone

Would hurt me this is too much and doesn't Cain have a lot of children today we don't want to listen we don't want to

Repent when God is coming to us beforehand after we have sinned we don't want to repent we don't want to confess we just

Want to bury it and then when we see there's wrath coming for sinners we say who on earth does God think he is

A God of grace he doesn't have judgment I don't worship a God of wrath and it's like we do worship a God of

Grace but he does have wrath that's what the grace is for it's for his wrath it covers his justice too often all we

Care about is the consequences not our own actions not our own hearts we can't even see our sin so verse 13 and Cain

Said to the Lord my punishment is greater than I can bear behold you have driven me today away from the ground and from

Your face I shall be hidden I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on earth whoever finds me will kill me then the

Lord said to him not so if anyone kills Cain vengeance shall be taken on him seven fold and the Lord put a Mark

On Cain lest any who found him should attack him then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the

Land of Nod east of Eden so Cain says this is unfair and God says no your punishment is that you'll be a wanderer

Your punishment is that you'll be no longer attached to the ground and I'm going to put a Mark on you that if anyone harms you

His vengeance will be seven fold and God saying he'll carry that out which shows a lot of grace in the midst of Cain's sin

And in the midst of Cain's audacity to argue with God about what's fair and not fair 17 Cain knew his wife so now

This becomes important we don't know when he got a wife who his wife is Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore

Enoch now some of you were saying okay wait a second some of you were fine with that and I'm about to make you

Not fine with that some of you weren't fine with that because you were like wait I thought there was Adam and Eve and

They had some sons where did this wife come from glad you're all sitting down most likely Cain sister you guys Adam and Eve

Are the only people and all the children come from them Cain married his sister now I want to make that a little bit

Better to talk about dogs for a second so all the dogs we have and all the dog breeds that we have just stay

With me don't don't start guessing what I'm going to say just wait all the dogs we have and all the dog breeds we

Have came from an original wolf like a big dog like there wasn't a bunch of little like chihuahuas didn't roam the wild that

Didn't happen you guys I know you thinking mine is mean enough to no it's not if you're not even paying attention to it

In your yard a hulk will still get that thing like you eliminating strands of DNA and types of DNA and we we kind

Of can whittle them down to make a certain type of dog so you eliminate genetic code to get a specific dog this is

Why purebred dogs have more health issues than mutts because the genetic code is smaller they have less to pull from they have more

Health issues this is why like if you go buy a $1200 to Adam and Eve were like wolves they were the original pair

That had all the genetic code their children weren't they did inbreed but they weren't inbred does that make sense like they didn't have

Small genetic code so actually later in the Bible it's going to say no you don't need to marry your cousin but that is

As they became a nation that had eliminated so God brought all peoples from Adam and Eve and it wasn't the way we imagine

It now I hope that helped it might not have but there you go okay verse 17 came to his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch

When he built a city he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch to Enoch was born Irad and Irad father Mahujael and Mahujael fathered Methushael and Methushael fathered

Lamech and Lamech took two wives okay so the text just told us Lamech is changing things and it indicates to us that Lamech is pursuing he gives a full vent to his passion that's kind of what the text has shown us here

Because God originally made a man and a woman he brought them together and from this point on there was a man and a woman and we're following this one train through here and all of a sudden it says Lamech took

Two wives the name of one was Ada and the name of the other Zilha also for the record the Bible in Genesis doesn't always give us commentary of what's going on so it doesn't say he did this and that was wrong

It just tells us that it happened and this is the father of polygamy and polygamy never works out well in the Bible it happens all the time in the Bible it's never shown in a good light there's never like this was a

Polygamy a polygamous couple and it was great it's always a mess and some of y'all are like I'm married to one person and it's a mess we're not adding other people into this like imagine all of your arguments but now there's a third person who's in bed like that would

Be great we're gonna see it gets worse you guys when we get to Genesis later there's a lot of polygamous problems other Zilha and Ada bore Jabal and he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock he kind of had a whole people that lived

In tents and have livestock his brother's name was Jubal he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe so what we're seeing is that this line coming from Cain which is sinful still has beautiful things going on there's still culture coming

Out of it there's still cities there's still music there's still creativeness in this and it says Zilha also bore Tubal Cain and he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron the sister of Tubal Cain was Nema and Lamech

Said to his wives so we're going back to Lamech and this is to highlight what Cain's line became what it was like Ada and Zilha hear my voice you wives of Lamech listen to what I say I have killed a man for wounding me a young man

For striking me if Cain's revenge is sevenfold then Lamech's is seventy sevenfold and so it just shows that sin continued and that Cain rather that Lamech declares his own curse somebody just harms him he murders him and then he's just proud of it he doesn't hide it he announces it and he says

If anybody tries to harm me Cain who had a curse placed on him by God to protect him I get to place my own and it's better and bigger than God's and so the text is showing us that Cain's line has deteriorated and then it turns and it says Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son and called his name Seth for she said God has appointed

For me another offspring instead of Abel for Cain killed him to Seth also a son was born and he called his name Enosh and the time people began to call upon the name of the Lord and so it kind of gives this redemptive idea here at the end through Seth that God's going to continue the promise he made that he's going to continue his offspring that he's going to continue to do this beautiful work of redeeming

In the middle of Cain's sin and his line God brings about Seth and begins to continue out the promise that he says he'll one day send a redeemer and that's who Christ comes through is Seth and I want to highlight one thing as we come to a close the band's going to come back up here we're going to sing and we're going to take communion but in verse 10 God says this to Cain says the Lord said

What have you done the voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground the Bible tells us that it was through faith that Abel spoke even though he was dead that it was his faith that declared his presence and who he was and what Cain had done and then in Hebrews 12 right after it says that it says this about Jesus and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks

A better word than the blood of Abel you see the blood of Abel cried out for condemnation all the blood of Abel could do for Cain was display his sin all the blood of Abel could do for Cain was call out for God's justice and God's wrath and condemnation for what Cain had done and so we have Jesus who gives us a better covenant and better blood so many of us have sins that are like Abel we have tried to bury them

And all they will ever do for us is cry out to God for condemnation for destruction for justice for wrath there is going to be a day when we stand before God and you are either going to have all of your past cry out like the blood of Abel condemn or you will get to stand in a new covenant with Christ where his blood cries out forgive that Jesus would come in the line

Of Seth that he would take the punishment for sin that he would die so that we could live that he would rise again that we might have hope and that those who place their faith in him are covered by his blood which speaks forgiveness and life and hope not condemnation so in a second church as we take communion together it's for all those who have placed their faith in Christ to remember

To appreciate to enjoy to take part in the fact that his blood cries out forgiveness and hope and life for us so that we take communion that we might celebrate that his body was broken his blood was shed and we've been forgiven and if you're not a Christian the blood of Christ does not cover you we would encourage you to not take communion but to sit and think about the fact that his blood can cover you

And that if you place your faith in him rather than your sin crying out condemn you'll have Christ crying out forgive and his blood speaking on your behalf let's pray God we thank you for your goodness and your grace towards us we pray that you would help us to trust in you that we might see our sin before it's too late before we've run headlong in it and that for those of us who feel like I'm on the other side

I've already committed my murder I've already done the unthinkable that we would know that God comes to us and he gives us a chance to repent and that he still has grace for us and that Christ's blood will shed for all those who do not deserve it not for the good not for the well behaved but for the sinner I pray that we would repent of our sin that we would partake in communion as those who are forgiven and free and who your blood

Speaks a better word on our behalf in Jesus name amen they're going to play a little music and as you pray and reflect when you feel led get up and take communion and then we'll sing together in a moment I'm going to open up two ahead how are you there you

Guest User 8/19/18 Guest User 8/19/18

The Fall

Transcript

Well, all right. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab a Bible. Go to Genesis chapter 3. We're working our way through the book of Genesis.

And we're in Genesis chapter 3. And so far in the book of Genesis, it has been great. Everything is working perfectly. The world is beautiful. The grass is green. The birds chirp.

Everybody's frolicking around naked and happy. And today it's not going to go so well. One of the things that we all collectively agree on, and it doesn't matter kind of your worldview, and it doesn't really matter your approach to faith or your approach to God. It doesn't really matter your understanding of origin. One of the things that we collectively agree on is that this world isn't perfect. That there are things that are broken in it.

There are things that are marred in it. There are things that are wicked. All you have to do is watch the news for a little while. Like if you're at your house and you're like, I'm having a pretty good day. I'd like to be depressed. Just open a news app.

Watch the news for a little while. I know Jimmy Fallon for a little while would do good news. They just had news anchors read made-up good news stories to try to make everybody feel better. So it's like two minutes of them just saying happy things, and it was the weirdest thing to ever see news anchors do. But they'd use their little news anchor voice, and they'd be like, this just in.

Puppies are still cute. And then they would turn to the other camera, and they'd be like, When asked his favorite color, Barack Obama excitedly answered all of them before hugging the questioner. Like it would just do two minutes of like this happy news because that's not what we get. That's not what happens, and it doesn't matter what your belief system is. Everybody can kind of collectively say, no, this isn't how this should work. And then the argument comes not that everything is broken but how to fix it.

That's where we begin politics. That's where we begin these discussions. That's where we have debate is in the answer of how do we fix this. Not that it's broken. Nobody's ever said, we really need to work on this issue. And someone said, I don't even know of those issues at all.

I don't see that. I don't see how hunger is a problem. I don't have a problem. No, we all agree that there's something broken. And so what we're going to see in Genesis is kind of how this unfolds. One of the complaints that happens towards Christianity, and these two complaints happen at the exact same time, and it's kind of interesting, but if you'll listen out for them, you can hear them.

One of the complaints towards Christianity is that it takes a beautiful world. We have this beautiful earth, and everything's nice, and Christians come along and say, no, it's terrible. People are sinful. People are wicked. You're wicked. Like, Christianity is just, like, mad at everybody, and so, like, the world is just, like, happy rainbow place, and Christianity comes by and spray paints garbage on it.

Like, that's kind of a complaint that you'll get. The other side, though, at the exact same time, they'll say that the world is broken and chaotic, and there's death and pain, and Christians come along and just spray paint a little smiley face on it, and we're all like, we're happy, and we have hope. Like, that's, these two complaints are happening at the same time, and the truth is Christianity does 100% say the world is broken, and you are wicked. And if this is your first time hanging out with us, welcome. You're wicked. Intro to Christianity.

You are a sinner. But we also collectively at the same time 100% say, no, the world is beautiful, and it is glorious, and there is hope, and we get to see right now at the very beginning of Scripture where we get that, where that concept comes, that there is beauty and majesty beyond what you understand. There's hope beyond compare, and that we're more depraved and more wicked, and things are more broken than you could believe. So let's pray, and then we'll start reading the text. God, we thank you for this time that we have to study your word. We pray that you would use it to correct us and to train us, to convict us, and to change us.

And we ask for your power through your Holy Spirit to do that today. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so we're going to pick up in Genesis chapter 3, and so far what's happened in Genesis 1 and 2 is that God created everything in Genesis 1. He spoke it into existence. And then we saw that He kind of paused on day 6, and He created humanity in His own image. And then in chapter 2, we see this kind of zoomed-in look of what that looked like and how God created Adam and Eve, and He designed them, and He blessed them, and He surrounded them with everything they needed to flourish and to have joy.

And the last verse of chapter 2 is this, And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. That's where it ended. Now, that's a pretty little picture of marriage. They're in a garden. They have good things to do. Their needs are supplied for, and they're naked and not ashamed.

There's no shame. There's freedom. And some of you think, that sounds awful. And you'll see why in a second, why we can't have that anymore, why that doesn't work the way it's supposed to anymore, why nudist colonies are weird. We're going to get there. But it's a beautiful picture that God began humanity this way.

Chapter 3, verse 1. Now the serpent, it's a snake. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He's sneaky. He's up to something. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Okay, so we've got to understand a little bit what's going on here because this is kind of a weird intro to this story. So it says that of all the animals God made, the serpent was the sneakiest, the craftiest. We're told later in the book of Revelation that this is actually Satan, that he's the ancient serpent. So that Satan has infiltrated God's good garden.

Satan has infiltrated God's good design, and he is now at work against God. And he starts speaking to the woman, and he asks about this tree, and we read about it in chapter 2 and chapter 2, where God says, You may eat of any tree in the garden except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it, you will die. That's all he said. Don't eat of that tree. So the snake comes along, and he says, Now we've got to pause for a second, because if you're new to this, you may want to go, Bible's cool with talking snakes?

Nobody's batting an eye at that? Like, you want to lean and look at the rest of your row like, y'all cool with that? Like, we're just, we're going to pretend like this isn't weird? A few things on that. One is, the Bible doesn't act like animals just talk. There's a later in the Old Testament where a donkey talks, and that was miraculous, and everybody acted like it was weird.

But God used a donkey to speak was a miracle that he performed. It wasn't like, yeah, animals used to talk. They didn't believe that. So they're having the same response, which is, wait, why is the snake talking to her? But it makes sense that Eve would not have been necessarily surprised or thrown off by this.

And the reason it makes sense is that Eve lives in a world where nothing bad has ever happened. She lives in a world where everyone and everything is to be trusted because there aren't any lies, there aren't any evil, there's no brokenness, there's no pain. So a snake talks to her, and she thinks, neat, I guess. I guess that's what she thinks. She doesn't freak out, but that's, it's the same with where you have to teach a children about strangers. Like, my wife was doing something the other day, and she told my son, he's three now, he's going to be sitting in the room by himself.

She was like, if anybody comes to the door, come get me, don't answer the door. He was like, okay. She was like, not even for the mailman, because he knocks on her door sometimes. And he was like, well, I can let the mailman in. And she was like, no, you can't. He's like, yeah, I know the mailman.

She's like, no, you don't. He's like, yeah, I do. And it's like, no, you do not know him. We're having to like explain to him like, no, no, no, no, you've seen him before, but you don't know him. He's not your friend. He's nice, I guess.

He's the mailman. Don't open the door. Like we have to explain to him. He doesn't get the concept. And so snake starts talking to her. And if a snake started talking to you, you would run away.

You'd have a better reaction. But she didn't because she doesn't understand yet. There's no evil yet that she knows about. Okay. So the serpent says, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

And we know that this is Satan. We do believe that Satan is real and he is at work to undercut what God has done. And we, it's really interesting that we get to see this unfold. And I want to, I want to tag something before we go any further in this story. I want to highlight something for us. There are some people who will try to argue that this is just an allegory.

This is just a little picture of try to give us an understanding of our world. But the Bible does not treat it that way. It treats it as if this is a real event with two real humans, Adam and Eve, who are the original pair that God created. And we believe that there was a literal Adam and Eve that God made. That he designed. The Bible treats it that way.

The New Testament assumes they're real. It treats Adam as a real man. It treats just the way it treats Jesus as a real man. And so we believe that this was a real couple with real events and a real description of what's going on. So the serpent says to her, did God actually say you should not eat of any tree in the garden?

And this is interesting because what he does is he comes along and he says something that's kind of outlandish. He stands next to her, slithers next to her. And then he says, huh. So you're not allowed to eat any of this, which isn't true at all. It's we just told in chapter two that God gave him all the fruit to eat except for one tree. But he does this blanket statement.

He still does this to us today. The enemy comes along and says, huh. So God's just anti love. So God doesn't believe that two people who love each other should have a, huh. So God just doesn't want you to have any fun.

Oh, so God just doesn't want you to be happy. Like he comes along and makes these outlandish statements. It automatically puts us off, off guard on the defense. So here's what she says. We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die.

Now, God did not say that. He said, don't eat of it. He didn't say, don't touch it. Now we don't know if Adam told her that or if she added it, or if she was confused, we just know that that's not what God said. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

What we're going to get to see this morning as we continue through this passage is how sin works. We're going to get to see how we're tempted, how we respond once we have sinned and how we ought to respond in our sin. And so what he says to her is, you will not surely die. And this is something that the enemy continues to do. He tells us that there will be no judgment. What God said won't happen.

That's not true. You won't actually get in trouble. It's not that bad. You won't die. That was an overstatement. That's not really how that works.

Look at it. He knows. And then he tells her that God's a liar. You'll not die. For God knows when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, some of that is true.

She will be like God, knowing good and evil. But what he's impressing upon her, what he's making her believe is that God is withholding something good from you. Now, of good and evil, which one does she not know anything about yet? Evil. She knows good. God placed her in a garden and it was good.

God brought her and Adam together and said it was good. God ends creation by saying that everything is very good. What has he withheld from her? Evil. So the enemy comes by and he says, he's withholding from you.

But what's he withholding? Evil. No. And so often that is what we have to understand is true about sin. It's true about the things that God steps in and says, you don't want that. It's that he's not withholding good things from us.

He's withholding things that are harmful, things that will destroy us, things that hurt us. And some of you feel the way she feels today. Is God good? Is he withholding from me? Does he really have my best interest in mind? So, verse eight.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And this is how temptation works. We are always sinning visually and mentally prior to sinning actively. So she looks at it and she starts convincing herself. She sees that it's going to taste good. She sees that it looks good, that this fruit is pretty, it's lovely.

And then she starts telling herself what it'll accomplish for her, that it'll make her wise. She completely buys in to what the enemies told her. She's elevated herself to the position of God and she doesn't even know it. You see, what she's done is she's placed herself to where she gets to evaluate whether what God said was true or good or not. C.S. Lewis said that it used to be that we understood as humans that we were the ones on trial before God, that God got to sit in the judge's seat and we stood before him in the dock, which is the place where you would stand to be judged.

And he says, but we flip this and we've put God in the dock and we sit in the judge's seat. That we're the ones who get to decide whether or not he's right. We're the ones that get to evaluate whether or not what he said was true or not. And so she places herself where she is now convincing herself to do this and elevating herself above God. She wants to be like God, forgetting that she was already made in God's image. So she talks herself into it.

And this is what we do. This is how we approach sin. We see something that we want and we start convincing ourselves that it'll be good for us. We see something that we desire and we start talking about, you know, I'd look really nice with that. That would be really good. My granddad was a pastor and I remember him telling this story one time in a sermon.

He said when he was little, his family didn't have a lot of money and he remembers going to school and kids would bring in 10 lunchboxes. And they started bringing those in and they had different colors and he saw them and he really wanted one, but he knew there was no way his family was going to be able to get one. And so he said, he watched the little kids at his lunchbox next to the swings and go get on the swings and start swinging. He saw the lunchbox. And it started to like glow and get bigger. Like this was his window.

This was his moment. So he snuck over there and he says he stood watching the kids swing up in the air, swing back, swing up in the air. And he said he swung in the air and he owned a lunchbox. And he swung back towards the ground and he no longer owned a lunchbox. My granddad, while he swung in the air, didn't own a lunchbox. And when he swung back down, my granddad was the new owner of a beautiful lunchbox.

He had picked it up when he was in the air and started walking off with it. He had seen something and he had begun to convince himself that he needed that. He pictured what it would be like. He knew how much joy it would bring to him, how much life it would bring to him. And any of us who have actively pursued sin, we should know what's about to happen. We should see what happens next.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. Now we should all be shocked. Everybody's jaw should hit the floor with what happens next. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. The text did that on purpose. It's a twist.

They just M. Night Shyamalan'd us. We all assumed Eve is by herself talking to this serpent. And all of a sudden in this moment, she bites and then we're told, and he just almost appears in the story. She hands it to her husband who was with her. What was Adam doing?

I can tell you it was not what he was supposed to be doing. Adam and Eve were in charge over all of creation. Adam was given the role to keep this garden, to guard, to keep it, to defend it. And there's a serpent in here. And we can assume it's okay for the serpent to be there. But as soon as the serpent starts questioning God, Adam and Eve should have said, you don't have a place here anymore.

You're not welcome here anymore. But do y'all want to know what Adam did? And men, do you want to know that we're tempted to do it today? We're told later in 2 Timothy that Eve was deceived, but that Adam was not. She was tricked. Adam wasn't tricked.

He was waiting to see if she would die is my best guess. He just, he was going to see how it went. Did it work out for her? He just kind of put her out in front of him and was like, we'll see. If she dies, I got more ribs. That's my best guess.

He was like, you want to make this decision? We'll see if it works. And husbands still do this. I don't think that's the correct decision. I don't think it's how we should handle our money. But you know what?

Hop out in front. And if it falls apart, I'll stand back here and know I was right. You can take the beating. You can hold the bag. And he let her just, he just waited. She ate.

He was like, is that good? She didn't fall over. Cool. But there was a slight delay on what happened. And all of us who've sinned know this feeling. She gave it to her husband who was with her and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Now the text is assuming that we know what it feels like to be naked in front of people. But we have a clue as to what showed up. See, what we read earlier in the chapter two was that man and the wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now they know they're naked and they're what?

Ashamed. Shame enters the world. And I don't know if you've ever been embarrassed or felt shame but it crawls up the back of your neck and it covers you. I don't know if you've ever been in a moment where you got caught red-handed or you broke something and then your parents show up and you're trying to explain to them that you and you can just tell that your face is it feels like your head has swollen up and you've turned bright red and you know they know you're lying and bees like this is what happened. That they got what they wanted which was the knowledge of good and evil. But it wasn't what they thought it would be.

And for all of us who've convinced ourselves to sin and to pursue something. Sometimes it happens immediately. Sometimes it takes a little while but we always get what we chased after. And it ends up being not what we thought it would be. You see my granddad said that after he began to walk away with his new lunchbox for the first little bit he could just tell how handsome he was and how good he looked. People knew how wealthy he was because he had this nice lunchbox.

And the further he went the more he realized he felt like everybody was looking at him and that lunchbox got heavier and heavier and heavier and the weight of it became unbearable. And he felt like he was exposed. That everyone would know that he was a fraud and everybody would know whose it was and like this was going to fall apart and so he said he walked back while the kid was still on the swing and he went up in the air and he didn't own a lunchbox and when he came back down he did. But this one wasn't as easily returned. So here's what happens to us in our sin.

We are exposed. It sticks to us. We feel it. It's that moment in the dream when you're giving the presentation at work or in front of a class and suddenly you realize in your dream that you don't have any clothes on. This has been imprinted in us that we're exposed and shame covers them. And so here's how they respond and you'll see that this is how we respond that we learned all of our beautiful tricks from them.

It says and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. So fig leaves are just a big leaf so they found some and they covered themselves up. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. This is one of our favorite and first responses to sin. We try to cover it up and we try to hide. I'm going to give you some of the ways that we cover sin up.

One of my favorites has been to promise myself very sincerely that this is the last time I'll ever do that. And I'm an honest person so I believe myself. Okay. Alright. That's a fig leaf. That's all that is.

Okay. You know what? I did sin but you know I'm not ever going to do that again. And I can always tell this is so wicked in my heart because that's in that same moment I'll be saying this. The reason I don't have to tell anybody. The reason I won't have to talk to my community group about this is that this was the last time and it'd be weird to talk to them about the last time I ever did something and I don't need to bring that up and this will be the last time and I promise it'll never happen again and I just try to convince myself but that's all that is is me trying to cover it up.

We try to cover it up with religious activity. I don't know if y'all know this but religion the idea that we can do things that make God love us we can do things to stand before God and say we're presentable all that is is elaborate fancy fig leaves. It's ornate fig leaves. See we're Christians. We believe that we don't come to God and present to Him things that we have done that make us worthy and valuable and lovable. We believe that we were made lovable that we fell into our sin and that Christ had to remake us that He had to die for us and that we present what Christ has done on our behalf to God.

We don't present what we have done but good works and religious activity is a fig leaf. I've been bad I've sinned but now I'm going to be good. Now I'm going to work really hard I'm going to turn over a new leaf. You ever heard that? Just add fig leaf to it. It'll be more biblical.

Turning over a fig leaf. I'm going to be good now. I'm going to behave now. I'm going to sow oh you don't even know my sowing skills are beautiful. I will look so good in these fig leaves. That's what we do.

That's what religious activity is. I'm going to work really hard and I'm going to prove to God that I'm okay because I'm going to make up for all the stuff that I did that was messed up. We hide. Oh man we hide. How many of us are sitting in here today and we have a few things that we've told ourselves you can never tell anybody that. I'll confess some things.

I'll confess some sins but I'm not confessing this one. Everything would fall apart if I did. This one I'll take to the grave. This is the one I'm hiding forever. If I tell people this there's no way I can keep going. There's no way they'll still love me and I just want you all to know that's such a trick.

I want you to understand that when you do that when you're in a community group and you've convinced yourself I don't have to confess this. I'll never tell them this. If they really knew about it they wouldn't really love me. But the problem is you never feel really loved because you know they don't know you. You consistently continue to tell yourself yeah but if they really knew and so we hide it. That's what they did.

They covered themselves in front of each other and then they hid from God which means that God's a little more unbearable in our sin. You ever have a friend it's like I remember in high school when I was walking late to class and you're like hurrying and you're trying to I gotta be and then you see someone else who's in your class and immediately both of you are just like hey cool. This is not so bad to walk in late with somebody. Do you know what I'm saying? So there's some amount of in our sin we can find a little bit of company but not before God.

And so we hide and I just want to ask how's that working for you? How's hiding working for you? Because it doesn't work well for them and God in his grace does something that I hope he is doing for us today. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him where are you?

And I hope God's doing that today. And for some of you who have been hiding who have been running who have tried to make the most elaborate fig leaves I hope that God right now in his grace is saying where are you? That he's calling you out. Some of you have no desire there's a part of you that has no desire to follow Jesus has no desire for any of this stuff. You hear us talk about community groups every week and you're like they sound like they're the worst. Some of you have been to a community group once or twice and you're like I hate this but you keep coming here and I'm praying our hope is that it's because God keeps saying no, no, no, no, no, no.

Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? And he said that's Adam I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Now is that true?

Kind of. This is another thing we love to do in our sin. Anybody ever been in a community group and half confess the thing? Just me? Okay, you don't have to raise your hand it's cool. You kind of confess like what he hid because he was naked or because he did the thing that God told him not to do?

Yeah, me and my wife we're just kind of struggling right now I want you to pray for us. You don't say I'm really stressed out at work so when I come home I yell at my children I yell at my wife and then I start drinking just to calm myself down. I do that every day. You say you're struggling and you need some prayer but that's the I hid because I was naked. He doesn't say I'm hiding because you remember that tree you told us not to eat of? We both did and I did and I willfully did it even though I think she was tricked I wasn't and that's why I ran away.

He doesn't say that. It's like a kid you hear a lamp break and you come in the other room and there's a kid there holding the cord and you're like did you break that lamp? And they're like what are lamps? I've never even heard of this. I don't even understand the concept. No, this was I was trying to fix it.

That's what we do. We kind of confess a thing because we know we're supposed to but we have this other part that we hold back or we try to make it sound a little better and we think we're clever. They did this on their own with no help off the cuff and they taught us how. We're going to see the next way that we respond to our sin. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Just wanted to point out the fig leaves didn't work.

If he had made really good fig leaves he wouldn't be hiding behind a tree. He said who told you that you were naked have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? God does this in an interrogation style but he knows the answers to the questions. the man said here's our next go-to the woman whom you gave to be with me gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Who gets blamed at the very last part of the sentence? I ate. He doesn't say I ate.

He doesn't answer yes I ate. He says the woman whom you gave to me she he's hoping he gets confused by the end of the sentence. She gave me some food we were there there's a snake like he just and how much do we do that? How many of us downplay our sin and we say things like this? Yeah when I was in high school I made some mistakes because I was kind of running with a rough crowd. So they weren't sins and they weren't willful they were mistakes you know like when you spill milk on somebody it was a mistake and it really what me was the rough crowd.

And it really what me was the rough crowd. I wasn't really a part of them I was there when we made the mistakes but I wasn't like how many of us do that? How many of us do this? Yeah we're having some problems but my wife yeah I know I did that but if you knew my parents if you understood what my husband was like how many of us

Elevate ourselves as Eve did to evaluate what God says and then use blaming others and blaming God God I know your word says this and I know it seems clear but I also know that I'm in a circumstance that you probably don't understand and they didn't really understand the circumstance when they wrote this and if people knew what my wife was like people knew what my children were like

People knew what my boss was like if people like if you just it's in us to sin to cover to hide to blame God you're the one who made me like this I love the movie Fiddler on the roof it's a play but I love the movie I haven't seen the play very often and he says Tevye says dear Lord you made many many poor people and I realize

It's no shame to be poor but it's no great honor either and would it have been so terrible if I had a lot of money he kind of looks at God and that's what we do we look at God and we say we know but why not me why am I in this situation why were my parents like that why did my life work out like that why are my children like that and it's this idea that God

Somehow is to blame for our choices and our actions and our sin and we got it from Adam who passed all this down to us then the Lord God said to the woman so God says she gave me the tree and I ate and the Lord God says to the woman what have you done and she does another thing that we do she says

The serpent deceived me and I ate she was deceived she was tricked he tricked me so we blame evil we blame the concept of evil we say yeah well you know the world's a messed up place we're just living in the system so the Lord God said to the serpent and he's about to curse the serpent he's about to curse Adam and Eve

And we're going to notice something in the text they do not immediately die but death enters the world and spiritual death enters the world we notice spiritual death entering the world the moment that the relationship between them is fractured and they have to hide from God they're no longer alive the way they were they're no longer designed the way they were everything's broken and that's how sin works

It takes a good thing and it twists it there is no evil that stands alone there's only evil that corrupts something that God has already made good and so some of us some people maybe want to read this and go hold on a second time out this seems like a very over aggressive heavy handed response to eating some fruit fruit I think death is overkill but the truth is this it wasn't just that they ate fruit

Every sin R.C. Sproul says every sin is an act of treason it doesn't matter how big we deem it that if God is the king of the universe and we decide to have an uprising against him to revolt against his good will revolt against his good design that we want to elevate ourselves to his position that we want to get rid of his decrees that we want to sit in his throne that we want to be

The king over our lives it's treason and that death is an appropriate punishment for traitors for those who would usurp the throne so the Lord God said to the serpent because you have done this cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field and on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring you shall bruise your head and you shall bruise

His heel so God curses the serpent and then he says this I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring and we're going to talk about that again in a second but it's kind of this prophecy of what's going to happen and then to the woman he said I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing pain existed before the fall in small measure it was a helpful thing he says he's going to

Multiply it I have two children my wife recently had a baby he's about six months old I think that came true that he multiplied pain and childbearing it's bad and she was like they gave her drugs we've done some things by God's common grace to kind of fight some of that and then he says your desire shall be contrary to your husband and he shall rule over you or your desire will be for your husband and he shall rule over you depending on which way they translate

That phrase in your Bible but there's this idea that what was going to be a beautiful kind of marriage dance like this perfectly leading perfectly stepping in time with one another is now broken and there will be pain when it comes to children and there will be pain in relationships and there will be pain between men and women as a result of sin and to Adam he said because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree I have that I made a big board

And I put that up in my house so that anytime my wife tries to tell me anything I point at it it's not true you guys my wife's small but she's fiery so what his point there is not that you shouldn't listen to your wife what his point is that what we were talking about earlier where rather than leading rather than serving rather than defending he put his wife in a position to take the blame and to take the fall and then blamed her because you've listened to the voice of your wife

And have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you you shall not eat of it cursed is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat of the plants of the field by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return death enters the world pain enters the world and we will now survive by scratching and clawing and by the sweat of our face we'll be able to make it until we will have fruitless

Active fight scratch claw tooth and nail to eat by the sweat of our face and then at the end of that we die that that's what we have that's what's happened because of sin and that's the world that we live in where everything is beautiful and good and designed by God and there's so much loveliness and there's so much majesty and that it's so completely marred by sin and our relationships are marred by sin and our relationships

To God are marred by sin and to each other and it's broken apart and that's where we live and that's who we are and then he says this the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them then the Lord God said behold the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life that was also in the middle of the garden and eat and live forever

Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken he drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life so God sends them out of the garden he sends them out they've been removed from the place he made for him their relationship with each other is broken their relationship with him is broken and they're sent now cursed

To try to work and make it and eventually die and this is us and this is where we find ourselves but there are three pictures of the gospel in this text and I want to encourage us the way we want to respond to sin the way you want to respond to sin is you want to use Adam and Eve as a playbook cover hide blame I want to cover I want to hide I want to blame I want to get myself

As separate from this as possible I want to do enough good works to make this go away I want to do my little religious activity I want to do these things so that God will love me that I'll be okay I want to try to make up for it I want nobody to know but I want us to see how we ought to respond to our sin in the back part of this chapter that we just read so he looks at pick back up in verse 14 Lord God said to the serpent because you have done this cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts

Of the field and on your belly you shall go and dust you out shall eat all the days of your life I will put enmity meaning you'll be enemies with between you and the woman between your offspring and her offspring he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel now the New Testament does some interesting stuff with this that he's going to have offspring what we see is that the enemy is going to be destroyed he's going to have his head bruised

Although he's going to harm the one who does this he's going to have his head bruised by a specific and that singular offspring it's not ancestors it's ancestor he says I'll put in between you you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring everywhere in the Bible that a genealogy is done it is done father to father to father to son father to son father to son every once in a while the highlight a female if we know a little bit about their story

Here God says there's going to be a woman who's going to give birth the only person in the Bible and the only person in the world that was born without a father on earth was Jesus so God makes this promise to the enemy I'm going to send someone who's going to crush you the first way we ought to respond to our sin is to acknowledge that we're not the ones who get to beat it you're not the one who's able to overcome this you're not the one who's able to fix the promise fix the problem God has promised

Someone else to do it secondly it says this in the text look at verse 21 and the Lord God made for Adam and Eve and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them God did not look at them and say no no no don't cover yourself stay naked he says I've got a better covering I've got a better covering than what you can accomplish the second thing that we ought to do in our sin is to go to God and expose our sin

So that he can cover it that's what happens in Christ see we're told that everything that we hide gets uncovered everything that we hide gets exposed that on the last day God's going to bring it forth that what we whisper he's going to shout from the rooftops but that everything that we expose everything that we bring to him in our sin he covers and so they had to come to him and they had to remove their fig leaves they had to quit hiding

And let him cover them we're clothed in the new heavens and the new earth by God's glory by Christ's grace lastly then the Lord God said behold the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken he drove out the man at the east of the garden of Eden

He placed the cherubim that's a type of angel and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life the way back to the tree of life is for someone to face the sword of God's wrath the only way to make it back to the tree of life is to face God's wrath and so the way we respond is we admit that we can't fix this problem we expose our sin before God and we place our faith

In Jesus who took the wrath of God on our behalf so that we might re-enter the garden and be given life see Jesus Christ fixes what falls apart here in Genesis chapter 3 and that's our hope it's the only hope we have that we would trust him who died for us and rose again that we might have life Raz and Kelly are going to come back up some of you have been hiding you've been hiding for a long time

Some of you have some actual fig leaves that work they work around other people Adam and Eve could have kept on going with the fig leaf thing until God showed up and some of you that's what you've got you've got acceptable fig leaves for your family for your co-workers for your neighbors but one day you stand before God and everything gets exposed and so I would encourage you to go to God and lay yourself bare to confess your sin

To be open about it to admit that you're wrong and place your faith in Jesus who takes God's wrath on your behalf that you might have life that the way to the tree of life is open again because Jesus Christ went to a cross and took God's wrath on our behalf so in a second Raz is going to play the guitar and give us a little bit of time to just pray to reflect some of us believe in Jesus but we've been hiding we have some things we need to repent of some people need to go grab somebody and talk to them that's in your group

And confess some sin and work some things out and then when you're ready when you've confessed when you've dealt with your relationship with the Lord and with others if you're a Christian in the room we'd invite you to take communion which is where we celebrate that Jesus Christ's body was broken for us that his blood was shed for us and that we have a new covenant with him not based off of our work or our labor or our ability but based off of his and if you're not a Christian in a moment while everybody else is taking communion please just stay where you are

And then we'll have a chance to sing and pray and be dismissed and if you've never placed your faith in Jesus you can't because it's not about your work it's about his so we would encourage you to expose your sin have Christ cover you with his love and his good work and then you may take communion as well let's pray God we thank you for how good you are thank you for the love that you've shown us I pray right now Lord that you would help us feel the weight of our shame

And our guilt and our sin before you that we would not grow comfortable with it that we would not begin to accept it and therefore never get rid of it I pray that we would confess that we would be honest that we would be real about where we are that you might cover us and clean us refresh us and give us life in Jesus name Amen

Mill City 8/12/18 Mill City 8/12/18

The First Man and Woman

Transcript

Well, good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab your Bibles, go to Genesis chapter 2. We are walking through the book of Genesis. Genesis is the first book in the Bible, probably on page 1, no matter what Bible you have, whichever which Bible you have.

If you do not own a Bible, we have blue ones in the row next to you. We'd love for you to grab one. We'd love for you to take it home. We want you to own a Bible. We want you to read it often. I have been married for, it'll be nine years this year, and I have gotten fairly competent at building things out of particle board.

There's not much in our house that is made out of any kind of solid material, but we have a lot of particle board. And I have built bookshelves and tables, and we've got a three-year-old now, and he'll jump up on particle board like coffee table, and I'm like, yeah, that thing's days are numbered. Like, this isn't going to last long. But we don't have a whole lot of real stuff, but there's different times when you buy something, and it looks nice in the store, it looked nice on the box, and then you pour all this stuff out, and you have no clue who originally wrote these instructions, and then even less of an idea of who then translated them, but they don't really match.

The pictures aren't great, and there have been times when I've been building something that I hit, you know, step seven, and all of a sudden I'm like, I just have to, like, step back away from it and stare at my creation, and it's like, I think something's wrong here. I think something's out of place. This picture doesn't look like this. I'm not even sure these instructions go to this. I think I'm missing some pieces. This isn't great, and since having a child, I've built even more things that don't even get me started on, like, train tables.

Like, there's just these moments where I have to step back and go, okay, I don't know if my instructions match. I don't know if I'm doing this the way it's meant to be done. And I think for a lot of us, life feels like that. I think for a lot of us, there are moments in life that kind of feel like that. Like, it just started happening. You just started making decisions.

Maybe for you, this kind of starts, I think really kind of starts, people actually start making some decisions in middle school. We've actually encouraged you before to reevaluate all your middle school decisions because some of us made decisions in middle school that we've just stuck with, and maybe we need to think back through those. But there are these decisions we make in middle school and high school, and then we kind of get out of high school, and we kind of pick, we're going to go to work, or we're going to go to college. We date some people. Maybe we get married. Maybe we don't.

Maybe like, and there's all of a sudden, there's these moments in life where you just kind of step back, and you look at your life and go, have I done this right? Is this built correctly? Did I miss a step? Am I missing some pieces? What is going on here? And so as we look at the beginning of Genesis where God is creating humanity, what we want to see today is kind of the good gifts that God places around the first man and the first woman, what he gives them, what he equips them with, so that we might better understand what is our life meant to have?

What are the pieces that are supposed to be involved? What order are they supposed to be in? How are we supposed to understand what's meant to be a part of life, and how do we live well in all the good gifts that God gave us? So that's kind of what we're doing, that as we zoom back on life at times and try to figure out, oh, I have everything here, we're going to hopefully see in God's original creation what he said, no, you need this, you need this, you need this, in order to be designed the way he designed humanity, to flourish and to be healthy. So let's pray, and then let's read the text together.

God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for how helpful it is, and we pray that as we see the beauty of your creation in Genesis 2, that you might help us to rejoice, and you might help us to worship, and that we might leave today grateful for Jesus and his good work on our behalf. Lord, we love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to pick up in verse 4, and we're going to kind of throughout the day walk through the rest of this chapter, but it says, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

This is the first of 10 times that we'll see this phrase, these are the generations, in the book of Genesis. Every time we hit that, we kind of know we're hitting a new section, a new kind of idea is being opened up, a new chapter in the book, and so it's saying, these are the generations, meaning these are the people, this is the stories we're going to tell kind of in this time frame, and so he says, in the time when God was creating and his beginning of creation and him in the time frame, that's what the day means there, in the time that God was making heavens and the earth, these are the people, this is what happened, and so verse 5, when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground, then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So in the opening of the Bible, we have Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, and both of them are giving an account of some of the same historical things that took place. They're giving an account of some of the same events.

So Genesis 1 is going to give this big, cosmic account of creation, how God, the God of the universe, exists before everything else. That's why it starts in, in the beginning God, like he was here before everything else was here, and that he speaks everything into existence, and it's this orderly account of God's creating and kind of the way that he created. And then Genesis 2 is going to start back up, kind of in the middle of that, and zoom way in. So Genesis 1 is this big, cosmic picture of who God is and how powerful he is and how glorious he is and how he speaks everything into existence.

And then Genesis 2 is going to jump right in, and the main character is man fairly quickly. It's saying kind of nothing was ready yet, nothing was going on, and then God creates man. And some people will read Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and say there's some conflict there. There are some places where if you just do a straightforward reading of each, it seems like they're in conflict. I don't believe that they are. I think the purpose is different so that Genesis 2 is telling the same story but in a different way.

And you know this. You meet some people who both were in on the same event, and you ask them how it went, and maybe your granddad says it like just real matter of fact and real logical and real in order, and it's not the best story, but you got some of the facts there. Well, this happened, and then this happened, and your grandmother and I at that time were, and like he tells it that way, and maybe your grandma's chaotic. She's all over the place. She's like telling this part of the story, and you're like, wait, I didn't think y'all had kids then. She's like, oh, well, we didn't, but they came later, and she just mixes it all up, but her story's way better, and it's from the same events, and they're both true.

That's kind of what we have here where Genesis 2 is going to zoom in and say this is the main point of the story. So when it talks about trees, when it brings up these other things, it's just kind of saying God did that, but it's not trying to tell you an order. It's not trying to make this a big, it's saying let's focus in on the main part here. So that's what we have in Genesis 2, and so let's look at as God creates humanity, and as Genesis 2 zooms us in on this, let's look at what God places around man. So go back to 5.

When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So in Genesis 1, God speaks, and it is. God speaks, and it is. God speaks, and he sees it. It immediately happens, and then there's this, in Genesis 2, we see that God pauses, and we saw this last week as we looked at the man was formed in the image of God, that God pauses when he gets to humanity, and he approaches it differently.

That he forms, and he breathes, and there's this intimacy that is seen with humanity that is different, and in contrast to the rest of creation. That as the biblical account tells it, the stars have glory, but not compared to the glory of man. That God's good creation, animals have glory, but that God's poured extra distinct beauty and creative work and connection into humanity that is wholly different from the rest of everything else. And the Lord God, this is verse 8. So this is the first thing we're going to see that God kind of gives man.

So he makes him, and then we're going to start seeing kind of what he puts in place. And the first thing is a place, or place. God gives humanity place. Let's look at this idea. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Those two trees are going to play a very important role in the history of humankind, and we'll get more to them in a minute. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and onyx stone are there.

The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush, and the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates. And the Lord God took the man, and he put him in the garden of Eden. And we'll stop there. God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden. So the first thing that God gives humanity is a place, and it is a specific place.

Some people will try to argue, and they're like, Genesis 2 is kind of this, it's an allegory, it's a picture, it's like, it's this, it's just kind of a story, but there wasn't like a real first man, real first woman, and we're going to see next week, we'll argue this out a little more. But yes, there were, because Eden is a very specific place. It didn't just say, once upon a time in a garden. It goes, no, in the east, and there was this river that ran into this river, and went to this land, that's not a part of this story, but that place has gold. Like, it just kind of keeps going, because it's telling you, it's a specific place on earth, and God takes Adam, and places him in a specific place on earth.

That we're designed to inhabit space. None of us can teleport. You had to wake up this morning, and move your body, and work really hard to get here. And some of us didn't make it here. There's some people who tried, and they're not here, you guys. They're in another place.

They inhabit other space right now. This is how this works. Some of you left family members at home. You were like, you're ruining this. I'm going. I will be there.

You will not. But we were designed to have a place that is ours, that is a home. And this is one of the beautiful things that God gives man. A place to belong. A place to be where he's meant to be. See, we're looking at just one man here, but this is actually what God is going to do for humanity.

He made earth this way for us, and that we're all only able to live in one place at a time, and only able to be in one place at a time, and that is a gift. It doesn't feel like it when you're at the DMV, but it is a gift that God designed us to inhabit space and to have places where we feel at home. You ever had those moments? I mean, it's not all the time, but there are these moments where you're just like, this is my place. This is where I belong. This is where I'm meant to be.

This is my home, and I don't know for you what that is. For some of you, it's the places that you, as you live in a place, maybe it's the restaurants and kind of your local haunts. I have restaurants. I had a Japanese restaurant when I lived in Lynchburg, Virginia. There's a Chinese restaurant that when I walk in, if I wasn't there the week before, there's a lady who's like, oh, I walked in the restaurant recently, and she went, it's not Thursday. It's like, yeah, my schedule changed.

I'll be here on Tuesdays, though. There are these places where you feel like, this is where I'm supposed to be. Maybe it's when you've come back from vacation, or maybe you joined the military, and when you got to come back from being downrange, there are these moments when you were like, yes, this is my home. This is my place. Maybe it's with family over Christmas or something where you're gathered together and you just have this moment. You can't describe it, and it's one of the things that C.S.

Lewis talks about in his book, Surprised by Joy, where you have this moment and you feel it, and as soon as you try to capture it or as soon as you try to look at it, it disappears. But there are these moments where you just feel, yes, I belong. I'm here. I'm meant to be here. I'm home. That's the first place that God gives it.

I want to point out something about this place that God gives. And I love that it talks about Havilah, and I love what it says about Havilah. So it says, God plants this garden in Eden, and then it starts talking about this river. And in verse 12, it says, in verse 11, it says, the name of the first river is the Pishon, and it is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah where there is gold. Verse 12, and the gold of that land is good. What does that have to do with the Garden of Eden?

As far as I know, it just helps place where it is, but this whole little, like if you were writing this, your teacher would circle the like, why are you talking about gold in Havilah? This has nothing to do with the rest of the story. Does Eden have gold? No. Does Havilah have gold? Yes.

Is it good? Yes. Where did God put Adam? In Eden. To work in a garden. What I love about that is that so often we long for other places and maybe you're supposed to be here where there is no gold.

That God placed you in a place and so often we get so, we wander and we convince ourselves that some other place should be our place. That we don't inhabit where we're meant to be and we don't enjoy the good gifts that are here. Some of you are so bothered by the fact that, you know, Charleston has the coast and they have these good types of food. And it's like, yeah, are you enjoying the river and the barbecue that's here? You've been to the zoo lately? Because if you were in Charleston and you wanted to see a lion, you're out of luck, bro.

And if you see a lion in Charleston, I got bad news for you. Something bad has happened. Like being in a place and enjoying the good things that God put there. That's a good gift that God gives humanity. He keeps going. We're going to see this in three spots.

It shows up in three spots, but we're going to hit it here. The second thing that we see that God gives man, it says this, verse 15, and the Lord God took the man and he put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. So God placed man there and he wasn't just like, hey, here's a beautiful garden. Take a nap. He says, hey, here's a beautiful garden. You got some work to do.

Because if you don't keep this up, it will not be a beautiful garden anymore. Isn't that crazy? I think we have this idea that prior to the fall, prior to sin, like back then, there was like, he just got to nap. That was it. God was like, here's green grass. Take a nap.

You know, he puts him there and he says, you got work to do. Later, he's going to have him name all the animals. Earlier, I love this. Verse five, it says, when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground. God designed certain plants to not exist if humans don't exist. Without humans, without us tending and toiling and working, it doesn't exist.

He designed it from the very beginning to need us to be involved, that God made the world that way. I heard a story one time of a pastor who used to ride by this plot of land and it was just overgrown. It was a big mess. He'd ride by it every day to and from work. Eventually, he saw there was a for sale sign in front of it and then the for sale sign was gone and then at some point he rode by and he saw that some of it had been cleared and then slowly over his trips he just kind of kept seeing it getting cleared and cleared and cleared and then things started being planted and it became this beautiful part of his drive.

He was driving by one day and he sees a tractor out there and he just gets out and he's staring at it and the guy kind of stops and gets off and they start talking and he goes, isn't it wonderful? Because he's a pastor so he pastors it up. He says, isn't it wonderful what man and God can do when they work together? And the farmer's like, you know, you should have seen what it looked like when just God was in charge of it. Every time I heard that, like it bothered me but that's actually how God designed it. From day one, there are things that were meant to only be good as humanity got involved.

Do you see the elevation and the purpose and the joy that God brings humanity in on his good work? That's the second thing he gives us is work. Good work to do. That he designed us to have a purpose. That none of us are meant to be here and just inhabit space but we're meant to be here and in the space that we are and in the place that we're put, we're meant to make it better. We're meant to add into it.

We're meant to do something with our hands or our intelligence or our ability to speak to others and love others and work together but we're meant to be a part of God's good work and that's a blessing. And you've had moments like that where you're doing some work, you're involved in something and you just have this glimpse of, now this is what I'm supposed to be doing. This is it. You have days at work when you come home and you're riding home and you're like, yes, that is what work is supposed to be like. I crushed it today. I am a worker and you liked it.

You don't always have days like that but there are days like that. There are times like that when you're doing something, when you finally, you were trying to cook the perfect breakfast and it just worked. You actually flipped the omelet and it landed and you thought, yes, from now on, I am the chef of the house. It was that one day, you've never done it again but you had these moments where it worked, where you felt your purpose and God gave us that as a good gift that was meant to be felt for humanity. It was meant to be a part of how we lived prior to the fall, prior to sin. Let's pick up the third gift that God gives is He gives us Himself and He gives us His Word.

Let's pick up in verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden. Okay, that's part of place. He gives us food. That's just a blessing but it comes along with the provision of your place. I didn't want to add in food because I would talk forever about that.

I'd have way too much to say but food's good, you guys. Later He gives us meat but that's not until later. Right now it's just trees and like vegetables and stuff. I realize we don't really eat trees. All right, let's go.

And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. I find this part of the passage so interesting. It told us earlier that God plants a garden in Eden and in the middle of the garden He plants tree of life, tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden, in the middle, somewhere in the middle. It doesn't necessarily mean it was the exact center but it's in the middle. Now, I have a question. If there's a tree that they will eat of and it will kill them, why plant it there?

That's my, I was like, I'm not like a botanist or like an arborist or whatever but why when you were designing the garden did you put it like if I said, hey, I'm making my backyard perfect for my three-year-old and there's going to be a swing set over here and this area's just going to be kind of wooded and I'm going to have kind of where you can hang out and I'm going to put a pit with spikes in the middle and there's going to be a tree house. Like, you'd be like, what's with the pit of spikes? And I'm like, no, I'll tell him it's there. It's like, no, there's this question I have when I read this text.

It's like, why is that there? You want to know the text, the answer the text gives us? Unfortunately, it doesn't give us one. It doesn't tell us why he put it there. We have a lot of people who've made guesses and I think some of them are reasonable and some of them are intelligent but we don't know why God placed it there. We know that God is infinitely wise and infinitely good but I want to point out one thing about this that I think changes the minute that God says, don't eat of that tree.

See, the moment that God looks at Adam and says, you can eat of every tree except that one and if you eat of that one on the day you do, you'll die or in the time you do, you'll die. what happens that moment is Adam now has to trust God in a way that he never had to before. He has to believe God in a way he never had to before. He has to relate to God in a way he never had to before. That God is inviting Adam into a depth of relationship that is beyond what would happen if God had just put Adam in a padded room. We also see that it seems like that death and this kind of this interaction was going to be a part of creation somehow.

God had not designed it for humanity. It was not meant for this to be the way it worked but God places him there and he says, you're just going to have to trust me. And the moment he does that we're invited into humanity's invited into a relationship where we are more dependent on God and more have to believe him and trust him over and against our own desire and over against our own wisdom and over against everything else so there's this moment now where the relationship has changed and God has said you're just going to have to trust me. Those of you who are parents especially parents of older children maybe you've had these moments where you're trying to explain to them why they cannot do a thing you're trying to tell them that they should not act in such a way and their answer is why?

Their question is why? They want you to convince them. They want to be on your team. They want to agree with you and at some point you just land on because I am your parent because I love you because I have wisdom things you can't just you're going to have to trust me. Maybe you didn't say it that way maybe you said because I said so. Maybe some of you said because if you do they will be like I'm coming after you like I don't know how you worded it but there was these moments where the reason they're supposed to do or not do a thing is because you have told them and they're supposed to bank on the relationship and the love and the connection and your wisdom and lean into you in a way they can't lean into themselves and as soon as God says don't touch that tree he invited Adam into that.

That he gives us himself and his word and the truth is we need God to do that. We need God to enjoy life. This comes third in the list but it's first we need God. In the way humanity works we see that God's at work before he begins everything that humanity needs God. We were designed to relate to God. We were designed to enjoy God.

We were designed to walk with God. We were designed to have conversations with God. You ever had that moment I wish God would just tell me. That's how it was supposed to work. He still gives us his word in scripture but we were meant to have this relationship where we listened to him where we understood him where we knew what he wanted from us where he gave us wisdom we couldn't have otherwise. And it's a good gift that God gives us and it's the way it works best that we were designed to be in a relationship with God.

The way that children were designed to have parents and that's the way that it works best. We were designed as humans to be in a relationship with God and that's the way that we are most free and most flourish. There are things about the world we do not understand. There are spiritual aspects to the world we don't understand that God wove in who we are and how it works. We see it in glimpses of things like when you become depressed you also get physically sick. You can be actually sick.

What made you sick? I was sad. It's like how does that work? That there's more to us than we understand. There's more that God's put in the world and we need him to explain it to us and show it to us and we need to trust him and we were meant to. Prior to the fall we were meant to trust God and his wisdom over our own.

The next one we're going to see is that God gives us each other. Let's keep reading. Verse 18 Then the Lord God said it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. We've spent a decent amount of time talking about this in the past couple years. The first thing that God says isn't good is for him to be alone.

He looks at the man he's created in all of his creation so far in Genesis chapter 1 he said he saw it it was good he saw it it was good he saw it he ends by saying everything's very good. This is the one moment where God was like no it's not good for him to be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. Real quick just to try to for anybody that this is a hurdle for the word helper while having kind of diminutive connotations in the way we use it like oh you're my little helper. like if Archer's helping me do work I'm like oh you're being such a good helper. He's not he's just hitting things with a hammer but it's like yeah good Job buddy.

And so it's like God looked at man and said oh I'm going to make you a little helper. And then that's where women came from. That's not that's that's that's why sometimes it seems like it reads the word helper in the Bible is most often used for God. There's only two instances where it is used to mean someone who is of a lower status. Every other time it's someone who shows up as like a rescuer. So it is not in the text and in the original Hebrew it is not meant to be diminutive.

Helper fit means that phrase really just kind of means a like opposite so he's going to make something that's similar but very different so that he's actually helped. So now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. This does show Adam's dominion over creation and God's place that he's put him in and whatever the man called every living creature that was its name. And the man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

So Adam you just think he's got a job and then at the end it surprises you because it was like a weird dating game because it's like but he didn't like any of them. None of them worked out. I think God was really putting that on display for him was like everything else is different from you. You are in a different category. So it's like zebras are neat but they're not like cute cute.

They're cute but not like I'm attracted. So that's what he's doing there. He's just kind of saying like this isn't going to work for you. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and he brought her to the man. Then the man said this is at last this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

This is the first bit of poetry this is the first bit of song that we see that existed in human existence. Adam had the urge that every high school guy has had who had a guitar at a party which was to sing and look at a girl. That's what he did. He saw her and he was like I want to write you a poem. That's what happens. This is the last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she should be called woman because she was taken out of man.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Alright so in this part of the text there's a lot going on here and we're going to zoom way out but there's a lot of things happening here. Adam specifically Adam the one man that God had put on earth did not need to be alone and so God brings him Eve. So what the text is telling us is that Adam needed a wife specific to Adam. It also means that masculinity is incomplete without femininity. That God's distinct way that he displays his glory and himself through masculinity is not going to accomplish what the world needs so he also has a distinct way to display himself and his glory through femininity and they were meant to be complementary like opposites that come together to make a beautiful picture.

It means on another level that humans were meant to procreate and they're not going to be able to have dominion over the earth and be fruitful and multiply and accomplish all that God's meant without males and females but on a very zoomed out level one of the things that God is saying and completely writing into how he designed humans was that we were not meant to be alone and that does not just mean romantically that humans were meant to have relationships. This is why if you get trapped on an island you will start talking to a volleyball because we were meant for other people. We were meant to have relationships. We were designed and so in this moment God says no, no, no, no, no.

Humans need friends. Humans need relationship. Humans need love. That we're made in his image and God's existed in a trinity so that he's been forever loving and relating and being a friend and all of this. God did not make humans so that he could relate to us but he did once he made humans say no, y'all need to relate to each other. And if you think about all the ink that has been spilled all the film that has been used all the song lyrics that have been written about the beauty of friendship and love this is a good gift.

That God did not design you to just be alone but he designed you for family. He designed you for relationships. He designed you for friendship. And how much joy that brings to life. How we were designed to relate to one another and bring things out of each other. It's one of the things where you know like maybe you have a friend and when y'all hang out it's really enjoyable and there's a lot of fun but there's a third friend that when they add in you all of a sudden see a whole other side of this person that you'd never seen before and like you get more out of them because there's more people involved and God designed that to be a thing that happened for humanity that we had friends and enjoyed it.

So God in his goodness to us and his love for us intentionally made it to where you inhabit a place and you're meant to be there to be home to enjoy it to be content there. He designed you to have a purpose to have work to do. He designed you to relate to him and to know his word to trust him and he designed you to have relationships. We don't believe that everybody has to get married. We don't believe that the Bible teaches that. We don't believe that you're an incomplete person without a spouse.

We don't think that jives with the rest of the scriptures. We think that Adam was an incomplete person without a spouse because God specifically brought him Eve but we don't think that this means everybody has to have a wife but we do believe that everybody has to be in relationship. You were not designed to be alone. I'm going to be honest with you. You alone is scary. You need help.

One of the things that I know that is true about me when I'm alone is I let myself get away with a lot of things that aren't healthy or helpful. I convince myself of a lot of things that are harmful to myself and I also believe a lot of lies about myself like that I'm really easy to get along with and I'm the smartest person in the room. When I'm alone I'm super easy to get along with and I'm great you guys and then I get around my wife and she's like you're not that great you got some stuff to work on and I'm like what is wrong with you and I hang out with my community group and they're like why do you do this repeatedly? We've been hanging out in a group with you for years and you haven't fixed this and I need them to grow and to be healthy and to see my sin and I need them to enjoy life.

We're meant for relationship. God in his goodness gave us each other and I have really bad news. We're not going to end the sermon here and it's going to get way worse next week but I'm going to give you a little hint about what happens next week. Y'all remember that tree that God talked to Adam about? Well next week they decide not to trust God and that humanity is more intelligent than God that we know a better idea of what's good for us than God and they completely mess up all four of these things for us. They get derailed they get stolen they get corrupted.

And that humanity is more intelligent than God that we know a better idea of what's good for us than God and they completely mess up all four of these things for us. They get derailed they get stolen they get corrupted. We still long for all four of these. Every single person in this room wants a place where they belong wants a purpose that makes them feel fulfilled wants a job that is great for them

Wants to have a relationship with God even if you don't understand that even if maybe I always want to point it out to you you're in this room some of you think you have no desire for God whatsoever but he's been drawing you he's been pulling on you he's been claiming you he won't let you get away you're here because we know we were meant for we don't understand why but we know that it's missing and we need each other some of you

Think you hate people but you know you're way worse off without them you're like people are the worst and oh my goodness I have to have them I don't understand see what happens is this they sin and all of this good gift that God gives them they lose they're removed from Eden the good work that God had given Adam to do

In Eden is now just kind of dispersed and he has to move and try to try to patch it together everywhere he goes to work the ground but it's going to be harder the relationship they had with God where they walked with him intimately knowing him where he could just speak to them and they trusted him is completely corrupted and their relationship

With each other you know this line at the end of this where it said they were naked and unashamed which is like that's weird to put in here but alright good for y'all as soon as they sin as soon as they rebel against God both of them go I don't feel right they cover themselves up they feel naked they lose the relationship with each other so let me explain what happens let me explain us in this story

You kind of like your house if you just moved in it you think it's great we'll give it some time we have this idea that like this house is great but if my kitchen just and we pick weird things if it was just a different color I'd be happy I'd be settled if our floor looked a little different if maybe we were in a different part of town if maybe our house was a little bigger I realized that I wanted this but now I really kind of want that because the reason is

We were meant for a place and we really wanted to work for some of us we do this with cities you liked it when you were first discovering what Columbia has to offer but now that you're going for the third time to the same place and you realize that the best restaurant near you is like an Applebee's like that hurts you inside and you're thinking man if I could just move to Savannah if I could just move to Denver if I could just go somewhere

Where weed was legal and we need to talk to you we do this we convince ourselves that some other thing would be better some other thing would fill us up some other thing would make us more whole and we have these glimpses of it where I'm home and then it's gone this is my place no it's not because we've lost this and we long for it this happens with work any of y'all ever had the perfect Job just the perfect Job is it still the perfect Job nope

Because that's how it works you get in it and you're like finally I'm at my place this is where I belong and then it turns out this boss is an idiot like your last boss everywhere you've gone your boss is an idiot and it's not your fault it's the boss's fault you don't know how idiots keep getting promoted you have those days where everything worked you remember that day I was talking about you're riding home and you're like yes this is how everything was worked how many more days have you been sitting in traffic

Like wanting to bang your head on the steering wheel like this is I don't even understand how everything broke I don't understand how this all went sideways because we long for work we long for this to work and it's twisted it's broken it's corrupted our relationship with God this is a room full of people who are trying trying to read trying to pray trying to listen to God how's it going you have those days where you're like I don't even know how to pray I don't even know

If I've ever done this right I have days I'm a pastor you guys don't get rid of me I'm going to tell y'all something I have days where I go to sleep I'm about to go to sleep and I'm like did I even pray today? like I have this deep longing for God and this paired with this absolute inability to bridge that gap and we were meant for each other you guys for every beautiful love song just Taylor Swift has written a breakup song

How many people used to be your friend? we can rewind a little bit to the moments where you're like oh we're going to be best friends forever and where are we now? it's broken we hurt each other how many people that you care about have you done some serious wicked harm to evil we're going to talk more about that next week I want to tell y'all something beautiful the story starts off where God says I'm going to make

Everything good for y'all and it's going to be beautiful and he puts Adam here and he equips him with everything he needs and then Adam and Eve mess it up it breaks apart it falls down and the story does not end after chapter 3 see we're here the rest of this is about God fixing the problem and here's what he does he loves humanity so much that the God of the universe leaves his place see he was meant to be on a throne he was meant to be elevated

He was meant to be glorified we sang a song about this earlier that he comes here and he's a baby he's mute he's weak he's helpless he's laid in hay he leaves his place he was meant to be the ruler of the universe and to do all good work and to pour life into everything and his good work that he's sent here to do is to die the author of life the creator of life life itself is going to die

He was meant to have a perfect relationship with the father and every time we see in scripture that Jesus prays he calls him father until he's on the cross and then he says my God my God why have you forsaken me this beautiful relationship this beautiful connection with the father that has existed since eternity passed in a trinity is severed because God poured our sin on Christ

And then poured his wrath on him that the sky turns black because God is pouring his wrath out on Jesus as a human and as God Jesus was meant to have this beautiful relationship with us he's despised he's rejected he's hated humanity gathers together to kill God and he does all of that so that he can

Swap places with us Jesus does that so that we can have a place so that we can have purpose again so that we can have him again so that we can have each other again that's the story of the gospel that everything's been lost and we have this ache and this longing for it and no ability to get it except through Christ if you're here today

And you don't know Christ you haven't accepted Christ I want you to understand that this longing is in you this desire for this to work for you to have a place for you to have a purpose for you to have each other for relationships to be good and I want to tell you definitively you will not get those outside of Christ swapping places with you taking the punishment for you and granting you what only he deserves now which is love

And acceptance belonging and purpose and here's what happens our place all of these get to be twofold now we have a home we're citizens of heaven you will eventually get to heaven and go this is why I liked every little place that I kindly had this is why I liked all the little things I liked on earth are here because I was meant for this place you'll get to heaven and be like yes this is finally home

But it also means that we get to enjoy the place we are now your kitchen gets to be a weird pink you're okay you get to enjoy it you get to live in the neighborhood you live in you get to drive the traffic route you drive you get to enjoy Columbia that's God's grace through Christ for us you get to do good work here and Jesus has given us all a new purpose which is to see people

Come to know him so it doesn't matter where you work there are people that don't know Jesus there that need to know Jesus there and maybe God's already sent in a missionary to work there so that you might know them and pray for them and long for them to know Christ we get Jesus we get a relationship with him we get to be welcomed back into the beautiful relationship with Christ beautiful relationship

With the Father because Christ bridges that gap for us and because Jesus forgives us of our sin and we can have the gap between us and God reconciled then we get to reconcile with everybody and we're given a new family that we will be brothers and sisters in the new heavens in the new earth for eternity that heaven for us will be a place of purpose

Of belonging of family and of love towards Christ and the Father the band's going to come back up we're going to take communion in a second and what communion is is for us a celebration of what we just talked about that Jesus Christ gave his life for us he shed his blood for us his body was broken for us so that we might have life

And we might be forgiven and if you're a Christian in here what I would encourage you to do is prior to taking communion prior to getting up and celebrating that Jesus' body was broken for you and his blood was shed for you I want you to think through place and work and your relationship to God and your relationship to others and I want us to repent I want us to repent

Where we've begun to convince ourselves that we don't belong here that we have to be somewhere else to be happy I want us to repent for all the times that we've begun to convince ourselves that if we just worked this job if we could just move our job if we could just get that we lost our purpose and our meaning for mission for seeing people come to know Jesus and for just doing good work

But God to put us here to do I want us to talk to God about our broken relationship with him and ask Christ to help us to commune with God to pray to rest in him to enjoy him and if you have a conflict with somebody and they're in this room I want you to get up and go talk to them I want you to begin the process of reconciling of repenting of asking them

To forgive you of telling them you forgive them if they're not in this room you have a magic box in your pocket and Verizon through God's good grace and somebody's good work will connect you to that person and I'd love for you to step up step out and go call them here or out there and then come back in and take communion and celebrate the fact that Jesus shed his blood so that we can have

Each other so all around the room we're going to start praying we're going to start repenting we're going to start celebrating the good gift that God gave us through his cross and then when you're ready if you're a Christian we encourage you and invite you to come take communion if you're not a Christian you can be all you need is Christ so you can repent of your sin and you can say I need a place I need good purpose I need to belong

I need you and I want to repent of my sin and where I've run and where I've rebelled and where I've like Adam and Eve chosen to listen to myself over you you can repent and then you can celebrate communion as well let's pray God we thank you for these beautiful gifts that you gave us and we thank you that when we lost them you redeemed them so that we get an eternal family we get a place to belong a home

We get good purpose here and with you and ultimately God we get you back that we might be restored I pray that you would help us to see where we've gotten this twisted and where we've been believing lies you'd help us repent and then celebrate well that we're redeemed by a good God who loves us in Jesus name Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen

Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen 音 Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Rema

Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen

Guest User 8/5/18 Guest User 8/5/18

Imago Dei

Transcript

Morning. We're in our second week of our series in Genesis. We're going to spend some time walking verse by verse through this book. It is the first book in the Bible. We're going to be on page one of your Bibles today. We're going to be in Genesis chapter one.

So if you want to grab your Bibles and go there. And you have some deeply held convictions about the nature of humanity. You have some deeply held convictions about human rights. And I don't know if you think about them a lot. Sometimes some people work in certain industries or they're fighting for certain causes. And so they think about basic human rights often.

But many of us don't. We just take these for granted. We understand that this is how this works. If a politician began running for office and they announced that they were pro-cannibalism. You would immediately be like, well, I'm not voting for you. And you maybe haven't thought about cannibalism very often.

But you didn't take much time to know you're anti-cannibalism. Like you don't. You're not on board with that. If they started saying they were pro. They were going to. Hey, like they came and said, hey, I think the purge.

I watched that movie and I like it. And I think that's a really good idea, honestly. And I was thinking maybe just like a two-week purge in the summer. Maybe one around the holidays. Like we would immediately be like, no, we're not. We can't do this.

Nobody can sign on for this. Because we have these deeply held convictions about human rights. About how we ought to treat people who are not in positions of power. How we ought to treat people who have different backgrounds culturally. How different stage of life. We have these deeply held convictions.

And so what we're going to look at today is why do we have these? Where are they founded? How do we know that they're real and true? Because they are a part of our lives. And they are assumed. But what I want us to see this morning is that they come directly from the scriptures.

And without the doctrine, without the understanding of the origin of life that we're going to look at today, you actually lose basic human rights. So what we're going to do is we're going to study this passage in Genesis 1. We're going to zoom in on something we looked at last week. We're going to talk about how human rights grows up out of this. And then we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about failures in this today. Because of sin, there are failures here.

And so we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about how we ought to engage with those as Christians. So let's pray. And then we'll move into Genesis 1. God, we thank you for this time we have together as your people to study your word. We pray for all of those who come in here hurting, who come in here confused about what to do next or how to respond to life as it is. And we pray that in these moments we would not just interact with your word, but that we would interact with you.

That your Holy Spirit would be at work in us for our good and your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. But it's Genesis 1, verse 26. If you're new to your Bible, like I said, Genesis, the first book of the Bible is on page 1. When we say chapter, we mean the big number. And when we say verse, we mean the little number that's kind of smushed down in the text.

So we're going to be in Genesis 1, verse 26. As we pick up here, we're in the first creation account. So Genesis 1 gives us a creation account. Genesis 2 kind of zooms in, gives us another creation account, kind of walks us through in kind of a more intense fashion. So next week we'll get to spend more time talking about creation.

We kind of set it up last week, said that there's some different ways to approach it. We're going to continue that next week. But what we see in this place where we're picking up is that the pattern has been this. God says, and it is, and then God sees that it's good. So God says something.

He says, let there be light, and there was light. It doesn't say, God said there be light, and then he has to kind of go for it. No, when he speaks it, it happens. And so we see that this, God says it is, and then he sees that it's good. And then it says there's evening, there's morning, the first day. And this is kind of the pattern that goes.

God says it's good, and then evening and morning. God says, there it is, it's good, evening and morning. So that's the pattern. We pick up, it just ended at day five. It says there's evening and morning, the fifth day. And then in day four, in day six, he begins to bring forth living creatures.

And it says this, then God said, this is verse 26, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them, that's humanity, that's what he means by man there. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So there's this pause, there's this break in the flow where God begins to speak, and he says, let us make man in our image. And so we as Christians see a reference to the Trinity there. This is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, speaking inside the Godhead and saying, we're going to make humanity different and distinct from all the rest of creation.

And so God makes humanity in his image, and places humanity below God, but above everything else in creation. Verse 27, So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. We're a young church with a lot of young families, and I think we've been doing pretty well with the be fruitful and multiply. I just want to say I'm proud of y'all.

Fill the earth and subdue it. We spent some time talking about that recently with the idea of work and how we're designed to have dominion over the earth. And it says, Have dominion over the earth, over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So, humanity is distinct above all creation. And we know this. We believe this.

We feel this. And this, every once in a while I'll get on Craigslist, and I kind of just think, Let me see what kind of dogs people are selling. I just get interested, and maybe every once in a while I think I want to have a pet. I don't, but every once in a while I think I do. And I think I do until somebody in our church goes out of town, and they're like, Hey, can you watch my dog? And then I watch it, and I'm like, No, I don't want one of these.

Children make it hard enough to go out of town. I don't want to have a dog that I have to deal with also. But I get on there every once in a while, and I'll look and see what they have, and people will say, like the little Craigslist thing will be, Hey, I'm moving to a new place. Got transferred from my job. I'm needing to move into a one-bedroom house. They don't allow pets, and so I need to re-home my dog.

I love my dog. This is the best dog the world has ever known. It's crate-trained, and I love it, but I can't take it with me. That happens all the time, on Craigslist. That may not be true. That dog might bite everyone, and they're not actually moving, but that's the list thing you see.

I've never gotten on there and seen one that said, Hey, I'm having to relocate to another part of the town. I've actually lost my job. I'm having to get a job that doesn't pay as much. I'm really going to need to move into a one-bedroom apartment, and so I'd like to give up my eight-year-old Ian. He's great. We love him.

He's in the second grade. He can read pretty well, but we're just going to have to move, and it would be best for us if he didn't come, and he's crate-trained. You don't see that, you don't see that, because we know that if you're going to have to get rid of something, your children aren't on the chopping block. You've got to get rid of the dog. You've got to get rid of the parakeet and the fish, but you can't get rid of it. We know this is distinct and different.

We value this, and even for those people who come in and say, No, I think, and we mentioned this last week, but I think everybody comes from an evolutionary process, that all humanity grows out of this process, this long process of this creature turning into this creature, and then into this creature, and then into this creature, and then into this creature, and now we have humanity, and what we actually said last week is that there is room for a theistic evolution. This derails some parts of evolution, though. Humanity does not come in the line of creation. It does not come in the line of livestock.

It is distinct and set apart, so there is some room for there's some microevolution for some changes in, and we're going to spend more time on this next week, but this messes this up because God has made humanity distinct and separate, set apart as something different, and we know this. We don't treat animals the same. I was sitting there in my house, looking out my back window, and I like squirrels. I've owned squirrels periodically throughout my life. I'm watching the squirrels in my backyard. I like having squirrels in my backyard.

We actually raised four and set them loose in our backyard. I used to, when I'd go out there and talk on the phone, they would jump on you, which was great for me, weird for people who visited. So I'm watching the squirrel. He's eating. And out of nowhere, this hawk just goes, snatches him up, squirrels flipping around, and just takes off. And you know what I did?

Whoa. That was pretty cool. I like squirrels, but that was crazy. Now, flip that around. If I was facing out the front of my house, I'm across the street from a playground, and if I saw like an athletic 25-year-old do that to a six-year-old and just snatch him up and take off running, I wouldn't have been like, whoa. My response would have been a little differently.

I wouldn't have texted someone and be like, you wouldn't believe what I just saw. And they'd be like, what did you do? And I'd be like, what? We all know we're going to lose some young if they get separated from the herd. Predators will find them. Nobody, I wouldn't say that.

The response is different. I'm heading across the field. I'm going to go figure out what's going on. I'm calling the police, but I didn't call and say, you guys, there's a hawk and it just ate a squirrel. We don't do that. That hawk is not going to go to trial, is not going to get arrested.

How to Catch a Predator is a different show than National Geographic. You don't ever see the cheetah chasing and all of a sudden the person who was filming shoot it with a rifle and be like, I saved you gazelle, you're welcome. That doesn't happen. We just watch it eat it and they're like, neat. Because humanity is distinct from the rest of creation and we know this because of this. That God intentionally poured his image into humanity.

That humanity is made in the image of God and has the Mark of God on us and this is what this means. Because humans are made in the image of God, therefore, all humans have value and are worth loving, pursuing, defending, and serving. Because humanity is made in the image of God, all humans have value and are worth loving, pursuing, defending, and serving. You can add any other words you want to to that. I grabbed a few to try to help us wrap this picture around the fact that it doesn't matter what skin tone you have, it doesn't matter which gender you are, male, female, pink skin, tan skin, brown skin, this language, that language, this type of food, spicy food, bland British food, it doesn't matter. made in the image of God, worth loving, worth serving, worth defending.

Now here's what happens with this. One of the things that comes along with this concept is that we have purpose. Because we are made by God for a purpose in His image, then we have purpose, we have value. One of the things that has happened, come along in culture, is this idea that you need to create your own purpose. That you need to look inside yourself and find your purpose. You need to figure out who you are, you need to make your own purpose.

And so many people in our culture right now are languishing under the weight of having to prove that they have value when the text tells us that you have value because God designed you and put His image in you. Made you in His image for His glory and placed you here on purpose. That you do not have to prove your value. And here's what happens. This is the foundation for human rights. That humans are distinct from creation, distinct from creatures, distinct from the animals, that we aren't just in a long chain of that and that we all have value because God's placed value in humanity.

This is the foundation for human rights and so here's what happens. If we have the idea that we came out of nothingness, this is chaos, it all just swirled into what we have now and just by chance after chance after chance after chance after chance after chance our world won the lottery and here we are. we lose the foundation of human rights because if you have to find your own purpose it means that we don't just have to find our own purpose, we have to find and create our own morality as well. I want to read a law professor from Yale Law School whose name is Arthur Allen Leff and he's just interacting with this idea that if you have a God morality makes sense. Some rules that we all have to follow make sense and if you don't if you remove God from the picture if this isn't actually how this happened then laws and rules and morality we don't really have a leg to stand on.

He actually says that he uses a phrase that he says you'll find in bar rooms and schoolyards which is says who. You can't do that. That's not fair. That isn't how you should treat people and he says the response is says who? You and what army? And he says if there's a God you have an answer to the says who and if there isn't you don't have an answer.

I want to read this quote it'll be up here. God's will is binding because it is his will that it be. He just spent some time talking about in the scriptures you'll see God says and it is that whenever he says something it automatically exists. That when he speaks something he speaks it into existence so that if God says it is wrong to do this or if it is right to do this it is. It is wrong. It is right.

He's the only one who can speak in that way. Under what other circumstances can the unexamined will of anyone else withstand the cosmic says who and come out similarly dispositive? Meaning that God can say this is how this works this is what is right this is what is wrong and we just have to take it because he's God. But nobody else gets to do that. We examine it and we decide what we think. There are no such circumstances.

We are never going to get anywhere in ethical or legal theory unless we finally face the fact that in the psalmist's words there was no one like unto the Lord. If he does not exist there is no metaphoric equivalent. No person no combination of people no document however hallowed by time no process no premise nothing is equivalent to an actual God in this central function as the unexaminable examiner of good and evil. The so-called death of God turns out not to have been just his funeral it also seems to have affected the total elimination of any coherent or even more than momentarily convincing ethical or legal system.

Just his funeral it also seems to have affected the total elimination of any coherent or even more than momentarily convincing ethical or legal system. So what he's saying is this God gets to answer the question of the grand says who he gets to speak into existence morality he gets to say this is right and this is wrong and if you remove him from the picture then nobody else

There is no other equivalent you can't move the US government over there you can't move the UN over there you can't move nobody else fits into that equation where they can just speak and it's unexamined. He kind of finishes with this he says put briefly if the law meaning this morality this ruling over us is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky then it can only be one place

In us as things stand now everything is up for grabs so if we believe that we grew out of the strong eat the weak survival of the fittest the smartest the strongest the baddest the toughest the biggest need to breed and pass on their genes and the rest need to be weeded out you cannot build a system of global human rights off of that you can build a system of local ones

You can say our government works best if we don't allow murder so you can say that it's best for the United States to have rules and laws but you cannot make the argument that it's not a good idea for the United States and the USSR during the Cold War to just annex everything on the planet and say we own you now and if you don't like that we're going to destroy you because they're more powerful and that's how the system ought to work you cannot

Say this is wrong this is unfair without acknowledging the fact that you have nothing to base it off of for example most people in the United States think that females should have rights be able to drive be able to vote have opinions I agree I think that's good I distinctly and specifically agree whether I had a choice or not because the scripture says he made male

And female in his image and to deny that is to deny what this says but here's what happens we want to outsource this all over the world people who don't believe in God want to take this idea all over the world and so what happens is people will say well we know that women should have rights and we know that they should be treated this way we know it okay but for the majority of the population and the majority

Of the human history we haven't known that and much many many places across the world do not know that and so what happens is when you lose the grand says who when you lose the ability to say this is why this is true when you outsource it when you go over to Saudi Arabia or Libya and say no this is not how to treat a woman this is how women are supposed to be treated these are the rights they're supposed to have

All you really are doing is taking a very aggressively deep held opinion equivalent to whether or not pineapple should be on pizza it's an opinion if I told you that I was going to go to Saudi Arabia and I was going to make sure that they got rid of the ridiculous clothes they wore and the nasty tasting food they had started eating cheeseburgers and pizza and wearing blue jeans because they're all better you would say how on earth are you going to act like your culture

Just wipes their culture out but then we'll say they need to treat women this way and act like that's in a separate category and it is if you're over here where God created humanity in his image and it's not if you're over here in a big line of chaotic everything I weigh 220 pounds my wife weighs 100 pounds if I'm over here who's to say how she's treated if I'm over here it's different now you could say well we have laws

We have regulations but all you end up getting to do is appealing to power might makes right which was the argument I was making you say well the police will come in and they're more mighty than you we can say racism is wrong and we just know it it's common sense but the truth is for the majority of history and the majority of the population of the earth that hasn't been just known or made sense we can say

That a stronger nation shouldn't just plow over a weaker one and overtaken it but the truth is for the majority of the population and the majority of history that's exactly how that's worked and it's made the most sense so you can say that Russia should not annex the nation next to it named Georgia but without this it's hard to back up your argument and so for many of us what we'll say is no no no no I know this

You just want to argue with this you're like I know this to be true and the truth is I agree with you and the reason that so many people who believe this stand over here with us on human rights issues is because God made us in his image and we can't shake it it's been marred by sin but we can't shake the fact that we know that humans are distinct and different from the rest of creation and Christians have modeled this forever Christianity came in and immediately began

To interact with and adjust how the world viewed women how it viewed other races one of the most beautiful things that happens in the early church is the holy kiss we don't know much about it we read it and are sometimes like well that's weird because they'll say greet each other with a holy kiss here's what the holy kiss was in that time period when the church got started when people greeted

Each other on the street they would greet each other with a kiss so if you were of equal level with one another you kissed kind of cheeks we're equal if you were in higher status you could hold out your hand and they would kiss your hand and that demonstrated to everyone when y'all met this person is lower than me and if they were very low they could kiss your feet they'd bow down at your feet and Christianity comes in and goes nope

Everybody gets kissed on the face I don't care what your money is I don't care what your race is I don't care if you're a slave or free I don't care it's a holy kiss and it was this symbolic picture of what the gospel had done and Christianity began to do this very early on because Jesus came and he redeemed humanity he loved humanity made in his image so much that he would die

For us Christians immediately began to model this and how they cared for the poor there's a letter from the Roman Emperor Julian who's writing in the 4th century and he says this he calls Christianity in here and he calls it atheism because Christians only believed in one God and that was a big problem for everybody so you would say well of course all these gods are gods and Christianity would just be like

Nope can't play your game just the one so they called them atheists they were mad at them he says this atheism has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers and through their care for the burial of the dead it is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar and that the godless Galileans that's the Christians care not only for their own poor

But for ours as well while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them what he says is part of the problem with these Christians is they don't just take care of their poor people they take care of our poor people too which is crazy but it's helped them grow but see this idea that poor people didn't have worth was rampant and then Christians came along and said no Christians and the Jewish

People who also believe this no every person's made in the image of God and is therefore valuable worthy of loving serving pursuing defending that's how hospitals began was Christians serving those who couldn't get medical help medical help was given to those who were wealthy Christians started just giving it to everybody there are actually stories where there were plagues

In cities and people were just dumping out someone in their family would get sick they would just put them out on the street or whole people were just leaving cities and the only people that were going back in were Christians started caring for the sick that weren't even theirs because they believed that this is a person made in the image of God and the truth is if I get the plague and die I have a great king that I'm about to meet

What we're about to do is going to be distinctly political so it should be fun y'all like being uncomfortable I assume the reason it's going to be distinctly political is we're going to talk about human issues and human issues always get pushed to the forefront of politics as they should sometimes I'll hear people say well Jesus wasn't political and that's true he didn't run for office he did ride a donkey one time

But he didn't he didn't run for office there we go but he always engaged in political issues one of the reasons he was killed was for political reasons they said he was setting himself up to be a king he was accused of undercutting the power system that the Pharisees had and the balance between them and Rome but the reason he was always interacting with political issues is because he was always interacting with humans on their level

In their lives and in human issues you will find politics so what we're about to do is take this idea that every human is made in the image of God and is therefore valuable and we're just going to apply it to some areas where we see it breaking down currently where we see conflict where we see frustration where we see a divide in the aisle and we're just going to try to point out and say here's how we ought to approach this and understanding that every human

Is valuable we're just going to push it into that area some of these will be handled more quickly than others the whole goal is for us to draw our attention to the fact that Christians have forever engaged in image of God breakdowns in culture and that we are not called to do anything less the first one we're going to talk about is gender we see this playing out in two distinct

Ways culturally you see we've been told that gender is a cultural construct but we just read that it's a divine construct that God made man in his own image and he made them male and female that there is a distinction between males there is a distinction between females and it both hold the image of God and are meant

To put him on display so here's here's where this is falling apart in two places culturally one is we have kind of this idea that gender is fluid that there are no two genders that you can't figure that out by biology and there are a few exceptions that are actually

Mentioned in the Bible but God designed gender two distinct genders on purpose and so one of the areas that we're seeing this breakdown is that this is under attack is maybe a harsh word it is but it's disbelieved and aggressively disbelieved and so we as Christians have to hold to

The fact that no there are two distinct genders but the other way that this is breaking down is that those in our culture who struggle with gender dysphoria those that are transgender in our culture are at increased likelihood for sexual assault they are four times more likely to attempt or to commit

Suicide and Christianity cannot just join in looking at those who are struggling and hurting and made in the image of God cannot just join in to aggressively chant you're wrong when we're called to distinctly love pursue defend and serve that there are those

Who in the middle of this are told that you have to create your own value you have to find out who you are you have to make yourself have worth that those in the transgender community the suicide rate does not change

Prior to or after transition because a lot of times they transition continue to face outside pressure but also continue to face the inside pressure that this didn't fix them and we as Christians know that they're made in the image of God and Jesus loved them

So much that he would die for them and they have value and they're worth loving pursuing defending and serving while we also uphold the truth that there are two distinct genders this is a gender issue as well but I want to we're going to give it a different word women this is a

Current cultural it is it has been a forever problem because God's good design was broken by sin and in God's good design men have been larger created larger stronger have thicker bone density tendon density muscle mass and therefore have gotten away with a lot of

Things they shouldn't have gotten away with that are heinous and evil throughout the history of the world because they've taken advantage of females who God designed in his good design to reflect his glory not as big so that we have the me too movement and I

Celebrate and applaud even where it has been painful and we have seen it cropping up in places where Christians are and in churches where there has been sexual assault and pressure we ought not to just discount everyone who comes forward with this but we ought to celebrate the fact that a voice has been given where there was no

Voice in history no voice attempted rapes and completed rapes according to RAIN which is the largest anti-sexual violence 90% of that is towards females 82% of the total rapes that take place or attempted rapes are towards juvenile females who are often in a position of lacking power lacking a

Voice if you are a female and you are 18 to 24 and you are in college you are three times more likely to face sexual assault if you are not in college you are four times more likely to face sexual assault than other females one out of six women in our nation has either

Been raped or someone has attempted to rape them and this is not okay that we have such a breakdown caused by sin in the image in the image of God that masculinity which was designed by God in the way he designed it

For protection for defense I'm meant to be bigger than my wife so that I can meet whomever's coming in the door so that I might carry more than she I'm meant to do this and it has been twisted and it's not okay we ought not grow tired of the me too movement we ought not discount it

Out of hand because on the other end of it is a human made in the image of God who has been harmed by sin and Christians are meant to swoop in and defend and love and pursue and serve thirdly the unborn and the orphan since day one Christians have joined in

This it was very common in the Roman Empire for a child that was born that was unwanted to be put over to exposure which just meant they would take a child and they would place them out where they might be destroyed die by lack of food

Lack of shelter and Christians knew where these drop off sites were and they began showing up and adopting a lot of females and any child born with a deformity and taking them home because Christians from day one have believed all humans are made in the image

Of God and therefore worth immense value loving protecting pursuing there are about 750,000 illegal abortions in the United States every year according to the CDC that is the equivalent of someone on the first day of school walking into every public school in the

State of South Carolina and gunning every child down since a legalized abortion in the United States there have been 45 million legal abortions there was an article that recently ran by CBS and it said that Denmark it says Down syndrome is disappearing in Iceland you click on

The article and basically the article was about the fact that they do prenatal screenings in Iceland and 98% of children that are prenatally screened to have Down syndrome the pregnancy is terminated they were interviewing I watched this interview and they were interviewing one

Of the ladies that counsels the women in the situations and they said what do you tell the ladies that are in the situation she said tell them this is your life and you have the right to choose how your life will look and that's

True over here but it's not true over here and here's the thing Christians if this changes and as ladies currently choose to not have abortions an unwanted preborn child is an unwanted child and Christians need to be

Adopting there are 400,000 children in the foster system currently and we cannot chant protect the unborn protect the unborn and then care nothing for those children that are starving

And care nothing for the children that are in foster care and care nothing for the children that go home every weekend and don't eat a meal because their parents decided to keep them when that was not a

Financially viable situation we're called to do both all humans are made in the image of God and therefore are given irrevocable value and are worth loving pursuing defending and serving we have two more racial injustice

Systematic racial injustice this isn't just garden variety racism this is what has been brought to the forefront currently consistently in the United States we act as if this is new if you watch videos and riots now they look similar to the 60s we've lapped back around on some

Things they were similar to the ones before that you cannot I don't believe that you can coherently or intelligently act as if the United States does not have historic issue with racism a nation that grew wealthy off of the backs of slaves

And that up until 50 years ago was actively oppressing and removing the right to vote from those who are of different skin color and then to act as if that should have flipped around in a generation I do believe a lot

Of it has gotten better I think a lot of it is still systematically at work to cause problems now our church is predominantly white and I do not believe that if you are white you are racist I don't believe that I believe you might

Be I believe most of us lean towards we're comfortable with our color skin our cultural background our nationality and it makes it easier for us to look down on others but I do want to make the argument that if you are white it is easier in the United States for you to

Pay zero attention to this issue I like to make jokes about people who have gluten allergies and who are lactose intolerant it's really fun to be like oh does that spicy milk get to you they don't

Appreciate it but I think it's funny I didn't care anything about allergies and stuff other than the people that were around me like I wouldn't like if I was hanging out with my friend Raz who has a gluten allergy I wouldn't

Like dip a cracker in his soup or anything ridiculous like that but my son now has a milk protein intolerance so that when we feed him milk he throws up and now I care I am aware of

Where milk is I don't want it near him it's an issue that now matters and I think that if you're white in the United States because we have been the majority and we have been in power it is much easier to just say I

Don't see the problem and that's true because you've never drank spicy milk and you don't understand what the problem feels like so I've ceased to listen to the arguments and what I've got to say is that may be a very good approach if you

Were conservative that may be a very good approach for a Republican but much of the rhetoric is not Christian it is not about our nation it's about a kingdom and there are things that we need to as Christians get very very good at listening

To and walking in that we currently aren't because all humans are made in the image of God and therefore are given irrevocable value and are worth loving pursuing defending and serving this is the same issue but it's in a different area

I'm talking about refugees a refugee is someone who is displaced from their home due to poverty due to famine due to war due to violence 65 million people made in the image of our good

God loved enough by Jesus that he would die for them were sent away from their homes last year now that is a major national and international problem to take in people into your nation that do not speak your language

Do not hold your values do not agree with you on basic human rights in so many areas are not on the same page it is a major national international and national interest and issue when people are flooding over borders I understand

That it needs to be handled by those in politics with wisdom but it needs to be handled by Christians like Christians with a lot of grace and a lot of love understanding that these people were made in the image of God and we cannot deny

That this scripture does not tell us a skin tone of our first parents but it does give us the indication that all skin tones came from them it does not tell us the language of our

First parents but we know that all languages came from them it does not exactly tell us their location we know they're in the Middle East so if you want to make an argument for European

Superiority you are going to be in trouble when you meet Adam other than the fact that he messed everything up but Jesus was also Jewish and he fixed it we we are designed by God with value

And purpose and so is everyone else and we as Christians ought to be at work and at war with all the breakdowns in our culture these are a few there are many many more I have a few questions

For us as we finish out our time the first one is this I want you to ask do I undervalue myself you see because this isn't just a global truth it is a personal truth that you

Were made in the image of God I know in a room this size some of you are considering suicide I know some of you practice self harm I know some of you are languishing and being broken under the weight of I've

Got to prove my value and the truth is you do not you were given value when the God of the universe created humanity in his image and you are an image bearer of our God loved so

Much that Christ would die that you might be his that he might redeem you from your sin C.S. Lewis in his essay The Weight of Glory says this there are no ordinary people you have never talked to a mere

Mortal nations cultures arts civilizations these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat but it is to immortals with whom we joke work with marry snub and exploit immortal horrors

Or everlasting splendors this does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn or serious we must play but our merriment must be of the kind which exists between people who have from the very

Outset taken each other seriously no flippancy no superiority no presumption that you are not an ordinary mortal but you have been designed by a God to exist for eternity

And everyone you interact with the same questions that Christians ought to ask is who is marginalized or who is devalued when it comes to interacting with this image of God breakdown in our culture we need

To ask who is marginalized and who is devalued this is systematic this is who doesn't have a voice in our nation who doesn't have a voice who is in a minority but it's also who at work

Is marginalized and devalued who at your school is treated day after day after day and has to go home with the understanding day after

Day after day believing a lie that they don't have worth or they don't have value because of their intelligence because of their ability because

Of their looks when all of that is a lie because they were designed and made in the image of God with purpose and

Value who do you marginalize or who do I marginalize who do I devalue who isn't worth my time who's lower on the scale than I am who am

I biased towards who do I have negative connotations of these are all fair questions for us to ask as Christians as we investigate our heart when it comes

To our inability to walk this out well the band is going to come back up and I want to end with one main idea I know humans and I know this room and I

Know that these aren't these issues that we talked about aren't separate from us but that in this room we are those who have been

Assaulted and we're those who've committed assault and in this room we're those who have trampled the rights of others and in this room

We're we're those who are blatantly blindly racist or coming out of that and every time we think about it we feel shame crawl

Up our spine in this room we've had abortions we've hurt others we've lied about others we've maligned others we've irrevocably harmed others in

Three years in middle school we are image of God failures and offenders that each time we sin we give a broken picture of

What our God was designed to be like and how he was meant to care for our city and our world and how he was meant to

Subdue and how he designed us to give beauty to the world and each time we devalue women or each time we grow in our frustration and our hatred

Towards another race or another language or men we chip away at what was so beautiful you see the scriptures tell us we were made in God's image that Adam and Eve sinned and rebelled and that

Image didn't go away but it got marred and then it tells us in Colossians and in John that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God that he perfectly images God the way that we

Were designed to that he puts God on display in a way that humanity was meant to that he comes here and he so loves us that he dies for us that each time you think about

What you've done to someone or how you've harmed someone or how you've been harmed and each time you begin to believe that I deserve to die God agrees with you but he doesn't leave us there you see in Christ Jesus took our sin and died

For us that we might be forgiven because I know that in this room I listed off a whole bunch of issues and sins that we carry around with us and that we no longer have to carry if we're in Christ you see in this room we

Are blameless in this room if you are in Christ you are free in this room if you are in Christ you are spotless and beautiful washed and redeemed by the blood of Jesus that you might one day stand before the king and he might welcome you as a son or as a daughter he might wrap his arms around you and he

Doesn't know your sin he's forgiven your sin he's wiped it clean because Jesus Christ took it all and died for it so in this room and among the global ranks of the redeemed we engage where it's messy where it's difficult where we say the wrong things where we mess up our wording where we offend where we harm and we engage and we re-engage and we re-engage and we

Love and we serve and we pursue and we open our wallets and we open our time and we open our schedule and we open our hearts that we might love those who the world has lied to and told them they didn't have any value because we have a God who when we were valueless in our sin when we deserved death loved us enough to redeem us let's pray God we thank you that we are redeemed we

Thank you that in you we have hope we pray you'd forgive us for all the times we've trampled on those made in your image and all the times that we've robbed them of the glory you placed in them through our words through our actions we we've asked for your forgiveness for all the times God that we've blatantly aggressively lied about who you are by the way we've treated your world and we've treated others and we

Thank you that Jesus took all the pain and all the punishment that he suffered and was assaulted so that we might be clean that we might be forgiven that he died so that we might live we love you and we praise you Jesus name if you're a Christian in this room one of the ways that we celebrate the truth of the gospel is that we take communion which is where we take bread and we take the cup and see Jesus took these on the night before he died and he he took bread and he broke it he said this is my body

Broken for you he took the cup and he said this is the covenant of my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins one of the ways that we remind ourselves that we are forgiven that we won't be crushed for our sin is that we take part in communion where he was crushed for our sin and his blood was poured out for our forgiveness that we are washed clean that we are made new and if you're not a Christian communion isn't for you but if you belong to Christ it is and if you aren't a Christian and you've never placed your faith in him I would

Encourage you to do that today to trust him with your life and with your salvation with your forgiveness and then you may be free to take communion you pray you repent you talk to Jesus and then when you feel led if you're a Christian take communion otherwise we'll stand and sing you Christoph

Mill City 7/29/18 Mill City 7/29/18

Creation

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm a pastor and training here with Mill City Church. As you can tell, we are in Genesis. We wanted to read Genesis as we worship this morning because the point of Genesis 1 is to turn to praise. It is meant to see the glory of God and how he created everything and lead us to worship.

Genesis literally means beginning. Or if you're a superhero nerd, this is the origin story. This is the origin story of all of our stories. All of our stories go back to this chapter in Genesis 1. The book of Genesis was written by Moses. He's the chief architect of Genesis and the first five books of the Bible.

He had some collaboration in it, but he is the chief architect. And he is telling the story in Genesis of how the earth came to be, how the early history of the world and the first 12 chapters of Genesis. And then from chapter 12 all the way to the end of the book is about the formation of God's people, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. There's a whole lot that can be said about Genesis. I don't have time for it this morning because we have a whole lot to get into. So I will just say simply this.

Genesis tells the story of how everything started off, of how it all went wrong, and it tells us the story of why we need a Savior. So we're going to be in Genesis 1. It's in page 1 of your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, there's a blue Bible around you. If you don't have that, if you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. That is our gift for you.

I'm going to pray, and then we're going to dive in. God, thank you so much that you created us, that you created everything that was made. God, I pray that we would see the beauty of that this morning. Amen. All right, so there are two different creation accounts.

There's two different stories in Genesis that tell how the earth came to be. We're going to be in the first one, which is chapter 1 through verse 3 of chapter 2. The people who put the verses and chapters into the Bible did a pretty good Job, and this one, they missed it just a hair. So this goes into verse 3 of chapter 2. The next one starts in verse 4 of chapter 2. Chet is going to cover that creation story.

There are differences, and the differences are highlighting different things, and he'll get into those when he teaches on the second creation story. But this story, Genesis 1, is meant to capture the glory of God. It's meant to capture, there are a lot of ancient Near Eastern creation stories that had all kinds of different ways they were telling about how the earth came to be. This one is meant to stand out above them. This is the true story. This is how it came to be, and it's meant to inspire worship in awe of the glory of our Creator.

And what happens in our current day is that a guy with a Richard Dawkins tattoo and a penchant for going on YouTube videos and commenting, a really just angry atheist, and there's not many of them that are that angry, but there's a few of them, and they're very loud, and they want everyone to know what they have to say. They stand up and say, hold the phone. Can you explain evolution? Because if you can't explain that to me, the book is closed. It's irrelevant. Your religion's irrelevant.

We don't want anything to do with it. Now, that's a loud, small minority, but then everyone else goes reasonably, okay, but what do you do with this? What do you do with Genesis 1? What do you do with how it interacts with what we know and what we hear in science? And when that happens, it sucks the beauty out of what this story was supposed to be. That because of Darwin's origin of species and the rise of evolutionary biology in the past two centuries, we've lost the point of what this story is meant to be.

This story was meant to be a great slice of cake, to be enjoyed, to be looked at in its glory, and we've traded it out for a cookbook, for a set of instructions. It's supposed to be a honeymoon, and we've traded it out for health class. And we have lost the point. Instead of focusing on why God created the earth and the universe and everything that was made, we focused on how. But the reality is, that's where we're at.

That's the context we're in. We've missed the point. So the elephant's already in the room, so today we need to do a little bit in addressing that. So this is what today is going to look like. I'm going to walk through five principles, five truths that help give us a posture for how we are supposed to approach this. And once we kind of have the posture of how we approach this, I'm going to walk through six different theories on how to reconcile what's happening in Genesis 1 with current scientific findings.

And then once we've done that, we're going to trade it out for some cake, and we're going to look at the beauty of what's happening in Genesis 1. So starting out, here are five principles, five truths that need to form the basis, the posture for how we approach this. The first is, the Bible is authoritative and true. That through faith in Jesus, who transforms our hearts, who transforms our minds, we know that God speaks truthfully. And He speaks authoritatively through His Word. And when He speaks truthfully, and when He speaks clearly, and you hear anything the world has to offer, and specifically scientific theories, we need to hold those theories skeptically, because we know the Bible is authoritative and true.

Second, the Bible is not a science textbook. It was not written to explain quantum physics, and it wasn't written to explain microevolution. Science by nature is limited to the natural, and it is blind to the supernatural. And our faith rests in the supernatural. I don't know if you know this, there's no scientific theories that show dead people rise from the grave. That's not.

But our whole faith hangs on Jesus conquering death, at the resurrection. Science deals with the natural. God created those natural laws. He operates outside of them. The Bible is not a science textbook. Third, God gives us the common grace of a growing scientific field.

Therefore, science is not evil. It's not. Scientific studies are the reason why we have a fighting chance against cancer now. It's the reason why, in the coming decades, the whole world will be run off solar power and wind power, because of scientific advances. So science is not evil at all.

One of my best friends from growing up, my roommate in college, is now a professor at Presbyterian College, my alma mater. He is a professor of biology. He has a Ph.D. in genetics. And I called him this week, and we talked a little bit, in interacting with science and the Bible. And he said something that I thought was really, really helpful. He said the sciences, broadly all the sciences, are trying to make sense of the natural world in an inductive way.

And when that happens, we get a little more info every day, a small piece with every new study. And with every piece, he says, we realize there is so much we don't know. The more he studies genetics, the more that he does research, the more that all of science starts to do this, they realize there is so much that he doesn't know. There is so much that we don't know. He says that most of scientists, most of people who are doing research, have that posture. Most of them have that approach, that there is so much that we don't know.

He said, you just hear about the ones who are the most vocal. He said, the Neil deGrasse Tysons of the world, the Richard Dawkins of the world. He is like, they are the most vocal. And then he threw in a jab, he said. And they are also laymen. They haven't been practicing science for years.

And the reality is, is that they are the most vocal. But most of science is humble in its approach. So we're not afraid of science. We welcome it. We welcome the quality of life that it brings. And if you want to hear more about that, we did a Home Sweet Home series a while back that talks about the Bible and science.

You can go back and listen to that. But science flows out of a ordered universe that God made. It is a common grace to us. Fourth, when everything is revealed and understood correctly, science and scripture are in perfect harmony. When everything is revealed, when all the cards are on the table, science and scripture are in harmony. Much of science is actually very compatible with the idea that the world and the universe were created.

If you talk to physicists, if you talk to people in biochemistry, they're going to point out that there's a lot that points to an intelligent designer. There's a lot that points to a creator. And out of the whole pie of science, there's one very thin slice of evolutionary biology. And there are quite a few people in there that are going to say no. So in knowing that, we understand what science is.

Science, in and of itself, is not fact. Science is not fact. Somehow down the line, we have come to understand that when someone says, oh, it's science, what they mean is it's fact. And science is not fact. It is a collection of theories that help form facts. And those facts become the basis for more theories.

I mean, bloodletting was the scientific way to treat illnesses for centuries. And so finally someone said, I think we're killing people. We're draining their blood. And they need this to fight things. We see this all the time. Scientific advancements keep coming and coming and coming.

We realize what we used to know isn't correct. That is important for us because you will consistently hear news stories that say, a scientific study says this. And I don't even have time to get into how those are funded and what they're going for and what the headlines they're grabbing for. I don't have time for that. But when you hear a scientific study says this, sometimes it's going to come in contradiction with a biblical worldview.

And when that happens, we don't panic. We read our Bibles. We wait for more research to come out. Lastly, Genesis is incredibly complicated and very hard to understand, especially the first few chapters. There's a church father named Jerome around 4th century. He noted that Jewish rabbis didn't allow anyone under the age of 30 to interpret Genesis, which I find ironic because I turned 30 in a month and other pastors are 30 and under.

Yeah, there we go. So, it's incredibly complicated. And if your approach has been, it's absolutely clear, we know it, I would have you pause for a moment and say, it may not be as clear as you think it is. It is very complicated. So, with those worldviews, with those truths in mind to help set up the worldviews we're going to look at, that needs to be our posture. Now, we're going to walk through six of the leading positions, six leading theories that help reconcile science and what evolutionary biology and some of the evidence that we're seeing and the findings we're seeing and the Bible.

Now, I just want to say on the front end, this is an open-handed issue. This is very open-handed. There's some things that come out of it that we can talk about later that are important, but it's open-handed as we walk through this. And the first one that we will cover is six literal day creationism. Some of my closest friends of the years, guys that are really smart, people I love, people that know the Bible so well, this is where they land. This is a view that says that if you look at it, they're going to argue, a straightforward reading of the text is going to argue for six consecutive sequential days.

And they're going to look at verse 5 when it says, God called the light day and the darkness He called night. And they're going to point this out every time. And there was evening and there was morning the first day. And they're going to say, that's sequence. That's chronology. Evening, morning, evening, morning.

That is six days in a row that God made the whole universe and everything in it. So that worldview places the entire universe at around 10,000 to 20,000 years old. And they get that through looking at some of the genealogies from the Old and the New Testament and piecing it together. The reason there's a big gap between 10,000 and 20,000 years is because genealogies and the way they were written weren't meant to record every single person in the line. They were just recording major figures. And they're going to argue that this was the consensus until Darwin came.

And they're going to say, when Darwin came, everyone started to read their Bible differently. And what happens when people do that, they're going to say, is you've elevated science to a place of authority and you've cheapened the Bible. That is going to be some of their arguments. And when pressed on the evidence, particularly the scientific evidence, people that hold this worldview are going to have two main critiques, particularly on carbon dating, which is how we know how old things are. Carbon dating is the measuring of carbon ratios. Obviously, I know so much about it.

But it's how they measure how old things are, how old fossils are. And they're going to look at some of that and say it isn't always accurate. It's not always true. One of the biggest theories they have is called flood theory. It's the theory that when the whole earth flooded at the time of Noah, which we'll get to in about a month, that when that happened, a global flood changed everything and it made everything look so much older than it actually is. That the flood aged the entire earth.

And these guys have gone to flood sites that have happened in the last century. And they've gone and they've looked at some of the artifacts that are just about 50 to 100 years old and they've carbon dated them. And the carbon dating came back as way older than a century. And they're going to say, see, water damage causes this kind of aging. Therefore, this is the leading theory. It's what they're going to say.

The flood killed off the dinosaurs. It killed off different species. And this is the way the world looks now. So that's six-day creationism. I want to walk through some critiques, a scientific one and textual critiques on this position. There is mounting evidence outside of geology and archaeology that show the universe is much older than 10 to 20,000 years old.

Astrologists are going to point out that there are meteors that come into the earth's atmosphere all the time. And we date those and they were never affected by the flood and they are much older than 10 to 20,000 years old. Physicists are going to point out that the universe is expanding and they're measuring wavelengths of light. And they're saying it's way older than 10 to 20,000 years old. And there's all kinds of other different scientists that are studying the earth and they're pointing out different arguments. And they just say, even if you conceded some of the fossils or some of the dating, there's so much more evidence that shows the earth is much older than 10 to 20,000 years old.

Now textual critiques in the Bible, what six day creations have argued for is that the Hebrew word for day, which is yom in the Hebrew, they're going to say that means 24 hours. It is literally a day. And we'll get to that word in a little bit. But there's plenty of Hebrew scholars that say that's not exactly correct. And the other critique that says that while we're just accommodating for what Darwin found, a lot of historical theologians are going to say, no, you can look at Augustine. Augustine in the 5th century, he said this.

He said, what kind of days these words are extremely difficult or impossible to determine? So the African theologian, Augustine, back in the 5th century, was having questions about this. Some of the reformers, like John Calvin, were having questions about Genesis. Some of the medieval theologians were having questions about Genesis. So it has not always been understood this way.

And we're not just accommodating for what Darwin found. All right. So that's literal 6th day. That is in the young earth, young race. Young earth being young universe. Young race meaning human race.

All 10 to 20,000 years old. There is another theory that's in that same category that runs alongside of that. And that theory is called mature earth. Here's what mature earth theory says. When God created Adam as an adult male, was he 30? Because he looked 30.

Or was he a day old? They're going to say, when God made trees, big trees with fruit on them for them to eat, were those trees with 50 rings on the inside, were they 50 years old? Or were they one day old? They're going to say, yes. And that's the point. That God made everything mature.

That everything looks the age that it does because God created a mature universe. And they're going to say that you can hold a 6th day view from Genesis because everything looks older than it actually is. Now some of the critiques that come with this deal with what about the fossils? What about what we find in the earth? So as I heard one atheist comedian say, do you think God put dinosaur bones in the ground just to mess with us?

And what they're getting at and what people in the Bible also are interacting with or getting at is that this kind of makes God look a little bit deceptive. So that's the strengths and the weaknesses of mature earth. The next few theories I'm going to walk through deal with an old earth view, meaning it's much older and some of these allow for a young race, a young human race in the 10,000 to 20,000 year range. And the first one is called day-age theory. Day-age theory looks at the text and when it says day, when it says yom in the Hebrew, they're going to say it does not mean 24 hours. It means in the day of.

In the same way that when your grandpa says back in my day, he did not literally mean a day. He meant in that day, in that era. And this view is going to say there are six consecutive eras. They could be a thousand years each. They could be a million years each. We don't know.

And they're going to argue that that is why the earth looks so much older. And much of this view is going to hang on in the translation of that word in the Hebrew. So does it mean a day, a literal day, or does it mean in the day of? So if you just put Genesis 1 away for a second and try to understand how this word's being used, you've got to look at the next usage that comes out. And the very first usage that comes out is the next creation story. And this is how it is used there.

It says, These are the generations of the heavens and the earth and when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. So the first instance that it's used outside of the first creation account shows this is a flexible term. It's being used this is not 24 hours, this is in the day. These are the generations in the day when it is being used. So there's flexibility from the text that we can see in this word.

And it's been understood for centuries. We just mentioned how Augustine earlier had noted that. The most influential theologian of the past 20th century was Carl F.H. Henry. He influenced everyone from Billy Graham to John Piper and everyone that we look up to. And he says this, he says, Faith in an inerrant Bible does not rest on the recency or antiquity of the earth.

The Bible does not require a belief in six literal 24 hour creation days on the basis of Genesis 1 and 2. It is gratuitous to insist that the 24 hour days are involved or intended. So what day age theorists are going to say is that this is flexible. This is six periods of time. So that's the argument.

Here are some of the critiques for that. Science, this view allows for some flexibility. It allows for some time. But people in evolutionary biology are going to point out, wait a second, that even if this is millions of years, the order in which it comes about is not what we see in our current scientific findings. that it doesn't match up. And you actually can just look in the text and you can ask the question, how were, if there are thousands of years between these days, how on day three when plants were created, how did they survive without insects on day five? That's how they pollinate.

Like how did they make it? The same argument is made of birds. Birds were created on day four. How did they survive without insects on day five? So if this is the view that you're going to hold, you've got to have some answers to that.

You've got to figure out how that pieces together. But then you have to answer the question when six day literal creations are going to say the text says it was evening and it was morning. And say, how are you going to answer that? It seems back to back to back. And that is what the next view answers pretty directly. The next view is called literary framework view.

This is a view that doesn't attempt to really deal with the science at all. It looks at the text from a completely different perspective. Here's what it says. That because Genesis 1 is poetic prose, it is poetry. The way the Hebrew is read is it's poetic and it's prose. It's common language telling a story.

That because it's poetic prose, there is creative license in how this story was told. And because ancient Near Easterners told stories differently than the way that modern Westerners tell stories, that we shouldn't read it as chronological. We should see it as a framework of days of forming, days one through three, and days of filling, which I'll get to in a moment. And they're going to say that because this is a framework and a creative story that's being told, that this is how you can interpret it. So let me show you the chart.

Literary framework is going to say this, that there are three, the first three days are days of forming. Light and darkness, sea and sky, land and plants. And the literary framework shows that on days four through six, the sun and moon feel it was formed on day one. The fish and the birds feel it was formed on day two and that land, animals and humans feel it was formed on day three. So the whole point of this is a poetic retelling.

It's not meant to convey chronology at all. It's just a poetic retelling of the story and that seems foreign to us. It does. I mean, we're Westerners in the post-modern age. That seems really foreign to us in the same way that if I had a foreigner over who knew English fairly well but didn't know all of the English language and I was telling him a story about, you know, my wife and I, we played cards last night and I killed her. And I'm smiling and he sees that and he's like, whoa, this guy killed his wife and he's really happy about it.

He's going to try to get away. He doesn't know all the euphemisms of our storytelling. It's a euphemism for, I beat her, which is another euphemism for, I won the card match, which does not happen very often when I play cards with my wife. It's a foreign way of storytelling but here's what, it shows up all over the place. It even shows up in the Gospels. Take the Gospels and try to put them in sequential order of events and you're going to have a tough time because even the Gospel writers aren't telling the Gospel stories chronologically.

They're telling them thematically and theologically. It is a different way of storytelling. So because of that, chronology is not important and therefore you don't have to reconcile science with this view. Now here are some of the critiques of this view. One of the basic ones is, well, well, well, that seems really convenient. You found a cute little framework, I like your chart, forming and filling.

That seems, it seems like you're just not trying to deal with the science at all. And that's kind of the gist of a lot of it is it just seems a little too convenient, it seems a little too pieced together well. The other one, and it just comes, and this is going to be where it's just, the two sides are going to agree to disagree. The sixth day is going to say, it says morning and evening, morning and evening, it applies sequence and the literary framework is going to say, that's not how ancient Near Easter is told stories. And that's kind of how this view is and some of the critiques of this view.

I got two more. The next one is historic creationism. This looks at the word beginning in verses 1 and 2. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and that word for beginning is the Hebrew word, Rashid. And they're going to say that that word has a flexible meaning which can mean an unspecific, undefined beginning. So what this view is going to argue is that verse 1 and 2 could be a long period of time that we don't know that God forms the universe.

And what the focus of the six days is the preparation of earth, the preparation of the land. So they're going to say that there's a long, undefined period of time on the front end, and then the earth is made in six days after that. There's another theory called gap theory which I can't get into that looks at that very similarly. It looks at verses 1 and 2 and it says, this is when probably the fall of Satan happened and the whole earth had to be recreated because of that and he used what was old to make what we now have. So it is looking at verses 1 and 2, looking at a big period of time and then what follows afterwards is six literal days.

So here's the critique on this theory. This theory is going to argue for a sequential pattern of days, of days 1 through 6, but they're going to separate it from the first two verses. And people who look at the text are going to go, if you're arguing for a sequential order, chronological order, why do you just separate it from 1 and 2? That seems a little too convenient. Others who are Hebrew scholars are going to look at how beginning is used in this view and they're going to say, well, that's actually debatable and there's going to be a debate over how you can translate that word. And then scientifically, you're still going to have to answer some of the challenges that come up in the fossil record, which brings us to our final one.

Our final view is theistic evolution. I don't want to spend a lot of time explaining this. This is what theistic evolution is. Evolutionary findings are true. The Bible is true. Yep.

They're placed on top of one another. The Bible is telling it poetically and what we know in science is true. And therefore, they're both compatible. Let's move on. So I want to point out two questions that this view is going to have to wrestle with.

And it's honestly two questions that each view is going to have to wrestle with. And the first one is, when did death occur? And the second one is, were Adam and Eve real? Were they real people? So that first question matters.

When did death occur? We know from Genesis 3 that God warns them not to eat of the tree of the fruit and knowledge of good and evil lest you die. They eat of it. We'll get to this in a couple weeks. They spiritually die and then one day they physically return to dust. They die.

So we can tell from the text humans were not supposed to die before the fall. But what about plants? What about animals? And this is going to matter for the fossil record. What do you do with that? Well, plants, obviously, something had to die.

Something had to get eaten. So fruits and vegetables, plants died. But then what about animals which make up a ton of the fossil record that we have? What about them? Did they die before the fall? I mean, there are a lot of people that are going to have current stances on food based on did animals die before the fall?

Like I went to a Brazilian steakhouse yesterday, saved up all day some stomach room and all I ate was meat and cheese and it was glorious. But there's some people that say, no, you don't do that. You have to go back to the picture before the fall that animals didn't kill one another. And some are going to argue, wait a second, what about lions? They have large teeth and claws. You mean to tell me that God designed them to eat grass?

That doesn't make any sense. And the other side is going to fire back. No, look at Isaiah 65. Isaiah 65 is a picture, it's a prophecy of the new heavens and the new earth at the end of time and it says this, the wolf and the lamb shall graze together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox. They're going to say, if this is a picture of the new heavens and the new earth, the new heavens and the new earth is a retelling of what happened in Eden.

It looks like they didn't eat each other. The other side is going to say, no, no, no, it's just metaphorical language for peace and they're going to go back and forth. Here's why that matters. You've got to have that wrapped around your brain. You've got to have that figured out because that's how you're going to have to explain some of the fossil record, some of the things that is being found. So when to death occur is a big one, but here's the biggest question that comes out of this entire debate.

Were Adam and Eve real people? I don't have time to get into that question fully. Chet's going to cover that in the next creation story more directly. But your, hear this, your view of this is going to be very telling of your understanding of the truthfulness of the Bible. I'll just give you a spoiler. The New Testament assumes that Adam and Eve were real people.

So your view on this is going to matter and it's also going to matter because there are scientific findings that are going to come out and they're going to say there's no way the age of man is 10 to 20,000 years old. They're going to say absolutely it's got to be over 100,000 years old. And there's also over the last decade has been a debate on was there an actually original Adam and Eve? Was there an original genetic pair? And there's been paper published, paper published going back and forth on that. So your view of this is going to be very telling.

But for all of these you've got to sort these out in your brain a little bit. And the reason why you should and the reason why you should read up on this and you should invest in this and we're going to talk about this in community groups this week is because there are people that have used this as a reason for unbelief. And you were called as a Christian to have an answer for that. You were called to be able to defend your faith in some form or fashion to be able to explain this a little bit. Now, pause. Some of you were like, yes.

Give me more. I want more fears. Some of you, very few of you probably, are like, I want to spend all day in this. And then others of you are like, I just died inside because we just spent 20 minutes. I just want the answers. Like, I want the cliff notes.

That was the cliff notes. They could go much longer. Can you just tell me what it is? What does the Bible teach? This should be clear. And I cannot ease that tension for you.

The answer is, I don't know. After all that, we don't know. I don't know. I cannot solve this for you. I honestly don't know. What's the position of our church?

We don't have one. We're open-handed on this. I mean, you talk to different pastors and we're going to say different things on this. I think that literary framework has some textual basis, but I'm not completely sure. I think mature earth theory has some textual basis. I'm not completely sure.

Genesis is really complicated. And you have to have that posture as you walk through it. Now, let's get to the cake. Let's try out the cookbook. Let's try out health class.

Let's get to the honeymoon. Let's get to the cake. And let's actually look at this text and see why Genesis 1 is beautiful and glorious. It starts out, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Francis Schaeffer says, this is one of the most pregnant with meaning literary statements in all of literature. There is so much packed into, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

What we see out the gate here is that God is the main subject of Genesis 1. He's the main subject of the Bible. It's no accident that He's the subject of the first sentence and that His name shows up 35 times in the first chapter. And here's what that means. The story's not about you. And it's not about me.

I don't care what self-help book you picked up in Books A Million that says you are the hero of your story. It's not true. God is the hero of this story. He is the point of creation. And we get to be made in His image as a specific part of creation. We'll get to that next week.

But we're not the point. And I feel like what happens when we have these debates over how the earth came to be, how the universe came to be. I know my posture in the past has been, God, could you have given us like a different, like an extra chapter of Genesis? Could you have explained this in a better way? Because there's a ton of people that are looking at this and saying, see, we shouldn't believe this. I've got to have an answer for them.

And I feel like God in that moment, it's just my feeling, is saying, are you serious? You have trouble installing ceiling fans. And you want me to explain how I made everything out of nothing. No. Read your Bible, look at an epic sunset, and be thankful. This should turn you to worship, not focusing on how.

Because God is the main subject. He's the point of creation. The next thing we see is in the beginning. And in that statement in this story, God pre-exists creation. Which means He eternally has been, always will be. People will say, well, what happened before God?

There was no before. God has eternally existed. He is the eternally uncaused cause. He caused everything into being. And it also means that He created time. And if time is like a linear object, God created time, and this is time, this is the beginning, this is the end, and that God eternally exists before time.

He eternally exists also within time. He also eternally exists outside of time at the end. Which is mind-blowing. And it hurts our brain. But that's how big our God is, and that's even a poor way of explaining the glory of what's actually happening.

God pre-exists time. He's infinite, and He's without need. Which also means He doesn't need us. He didn't need, He didn't make creation the universe. He didn't make humanity because He was lonely. He eternally existed in perfect harmony with Himself.

Which begs the question, why did He create us in the first place? And the Bible gives us two answers. One, because He desires us. He doesn't need you, but He desires you. He desires all of humanity generally, and He desires His church specifically. He desires us.

And the second reason is He did it for His glory. For the glory of God is why He made everything that was made. And we see that packed in the first statement. As you walk through the rest of Genesis, you see something else. You see that the Trinity is creating together here. That Genesis 1 gives us our first picture of God the Trinity forming things together.

In Genesis 1, 26, it says, Let us make man in our own image. And that is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit in communion with Himself saying, Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness. You see God the Father forming, shaping, creating. In verse 2, it says, And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. You see the Holy Spirit involved in making the universe. And then in verse 3, it says, And God said, Let there be light.

And there was light. And John in his gospel picks up on this. In the very first verse of John 1, it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And that is talking about Jesus. Jesus, the Word, the creative Word who brought everything into existence. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit together creating.

That's the first picture of the training that we get in the Bible. It shows up in Genesis 1. What we also see in Genesis 1 is that God speaks the world into existence. Think about this. He literally speaks things exist. He forms everything that was made by the power of His creative Word.

That when He says in verse 3, and God said, let there be light. In verse 6, and God said, let there be an expanse amidst the waters. Every time He creates, He speaks by the power of His creative Word. And the power of His creative Word, the power that that Word gives life, that theme is strung throughout the whole Bible. And it first shows up right here. That throughout the Old Testament, prophets speak, and it gives life that when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the Word came to life, and then He dies, the death on the cross, He conquers death at the resurrection, and then He leaves us with what?

He leaves us with a message. And we get to share that message with those who are spiritually dead to watch the Holy Spirit work through it and make those alive in Christ. God speaks into existence, and that theme is carried and it starts here in Genesis. What we also see is that God creates everything out of nothing. He creates everything, the Latin is ex nihilo, out of nothing, out of thin air, air. Not out of, air is a substance and thinness is a quality.

It's literally out of nothing that He creates everything. He didn't need substance to make anything, which also means is He didn't need inspiration. God is the one who inspires. And let me play that out for you on a practical level why that's good.

Mill City 7/22/18 Mill City 7/22/18

Celebrate

Transcript

Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in the last week of our Hammer and Hammock series where we have been talking about work and rest. And as we start today, I just want to remind us that we believe a gospel of rest. We believe a message of rest, that Christianity is a proclamation of rest.

Over and against and compared to all other religions, Christianity is fundamentally different. So that if we had another faith, if we believed in another God, if we worshipped in another religion, but primarily what they teach and what is taught and what is said and what we would understand is, come do these things, don't do those things, and then you'll be one of the good guys. Come do these things, don't do those things, and then God will love you. Come live this way, be this type of person, have this type of life, celebrate in this manner, and then you'll be welcomed. Then you'll reach nirvana.

Then you'll have inner peace. Then you'll have, and Christianity isn't that message. The fundamental message behind Christianity is not, hey, come here and do these things. The fundamental message of Christianity starts off like this. You're terrible. It gets better.

That's how it starts off. You're a sinner. You are broken. You cannot do the things it takes to be okay with God. You cannot do what is necessary. You cannot work hard enough, be moral enough, be holy enough to stand before God and have him accept you.

But Jesus is good. And he has lived perfectly on our behalf and died in our place for our sin, and that his death is a sacrifice that covers us. And so the gospel of Christianity, the message of Christianity is come to Jesus. He saves sinners. It's a gospel of rest. It's a message of rest.

It's not come labor, come work, come have something to present to God. It's a message of when Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's the message, to come to Jesus and have him save you, have his good work on your behalf. And then it's out of that that we do everything else. And so in this series we've been talking about we're designed by God in creation. He set the pattern of six days of work, one day of rest.

Six days of work, one day of rest. Six days of work, one day of rest. So that's the rhythm he put into creation. And so we spent some time talking about that we're meant to have purpose, we're meant to have dominion and work, good work that we do that takes time and effort, and that we're meant to shut everything down and rest for a day. We've tried to spend some time talking about what that looks like, and that it's worth taking the time and energy to figure out how you rest well. So some of you work with your minds and you need to rest with your hands.

You need to take up a hobby. You need to learn how to paint or play the piano or build birdhouses. And some of you work with your hands all the time and you need to start reading some fiction. And maybe it is restful to watch a show or two or a movie on Netflix, but it is not restful to have all of your rest just be Netflix. And trying to figure out what it looks like for you to rest, it actually may be more difficult for you to rest well and actually feel rejuvenated because you have to get in your car and you have to drive somewhere and you have to walk around and be near trees and get bitten by a bug.

But that actually makes you want to go back to work rather than just wearing sweatpants all day. And so what we've tried to talk about is we've got to figure out a way to do that. And so in this last Sunday, we're going to talk about one specific thing. As we were talking about this, we just started looking at it, and we were looking at kind of the calendar that God put into the world. And so he says, work six days, rest one, work six days, rest one. But he also intentionally calendared other interruptions.

And so we want to talk about celebrating. That Christians are designed and humans are designed to celebrate, to have rhythms of vacation, rhythms of holidays, rhythms of days and weeks and times that are feasts and celebrations. And so here's kind of our point today. That we were designed, humanity was designed for celebratory rest, and Christians should be better at this than anyone. We were designed for celebratory rest, and Christians should be better at this than anyone. And we already kind of know that.

That's the way we understand culture. You can remember being in high school or being in college and being at a party, and it just not being that good of a party. And you thought to yourself, this party needs more Christians. And then it would be great. This isn't something we're known for, but it is something that we ought to be known for. You have never thought that.

Some of you were Christians in high school, and you still didn't think that. You showed up to parties as a Christian in high school, saw other Christians and thought, oh man, and you need to repent. But here's the thing. We're supposed to. We're designed for it, and we're supposed to be good at it. So grab your Bibles, go to John chapter 2.

We'll spend most of our time there. I'm going to read a little bit from Deuteronomy 16 to kind of set the stage, but we'll spend most of our time in John chapter 2. I'll let you flip there, and then we're going to pray. It should be on page 517 if you have one of the blue Bibles in the row. If you don't own a Bible, take that one. It's our gift to you.

We bought boxes and boxes of them. So you may have them. And go home and use a magnifying glass so that you can read it. All right, let's pray. God, we thank you for this time we get to spend in your word this morning, and we thank you for this time that we get to spend with your church this morning. And we pray that you would bless it, that we might grow closer to each other and closer to you, and be equipped and rested to fulfill all that you've given us and all the weight and purpose that you've laid on us as your people.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so before we get to John chapter 2, I'm going to read a few places in Deuteronomy 16. So this is where God rescues the people of Israel out of Egypt, and he gives them the law, and he begins to teach them this is what it's going to look like to follow me. This is what you'll be. So we've spent some time in the Ten Commandments because he sets up the Sabbath there, that one of the Ten Commandments is take a day off, and then he starts giving them feasts and festivals that they're going to participate in.

And so I want to read a few of these, and we'll have them above on the screen. So in Deuteronomy 16, he lists out three feasts where he wants everybody to stop and gather in Jerusalem. And he's kind of telling them before they get into the Promised Land, this is how it's going to work. And he says, Then you shall keep the feast of weeks to the Lord your God. This is verse 10 in Deuteronomy. With the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you.

So everybody is supposed to bring something to this feast. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male servant, your female servant, your Levite who's within your town. So here's the command. You shall rejoice. You're going to take time to rejoice. You're going to bring something and you're going to celebrate.

Rejoice means to display or feel great joy or delight. So one of the commands in the law, and people will quote commands from the Old Testament law on a regular basis. They're trying to say, Well, the Bible says this. The Bible says that. Nobody's ever proof text this one on you. Well, the Bible says you shall rejoice.

It's like, but it's in there. One of the commands was, and they got in trouble if they didn't do this. These were aggressive commands. They weren't like, Hey, this is kind of a suggestion. I was thinking maybe I should have a feast. He says, Everyone's going to be there.

And if you're not there, you're going to be cut off. If you're not there, you're not welcome anymore. If you don't come to this party, we're done. You're not my friend anymore. This isn't how it works. It's aggressive in the commands here.

And it's a command to rejoice, to take time to celebrate. He keeps going. The Feast of Tabernacles. He says this. You shall rejoice in your feast. You and your son and your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, the widow who are within your towns.

So he says, Everybody. This isn't just for the elite. This isn't just for a certain group. This isn't just for men. This isn't just for children. Everybody's showing up and everybody's having a good time.

For seven days, you shall keep the feast to the Lord, your God, at the place that the Lord will choose because the Lord, your God will bless you and all your produce and in all the work of your hands so that you will be altogether joyful. So God sets up the rhythm of you're going to work six days. You're going to rest one. And then in that, he interrupts it with extra holidays and feasts. And he says, you're going to gather all of you together and you're going to have a good time. You're going to rejoice because I'm going to bless you.

You're going to be joyful and grateful in my presence in front of me together. That's the command. And so he writes this into the rhythm of humanity that we're designed to have holidays. We're designed to have vacations. We're designed to have joyful, delightful rest. He wants us to.

It honors him. It is not honoring to God for you to always be sad and mourning and bitter and everything's dark and everything's depressed. That's not that. No. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes there are things to mourn and sometimes there are things to be sad for. And absolutely.

But sometimes you're supposed to eat a steak and say, thank you, Jesus. Sometimes you're supposed to wrap that steak in bacon and be thankful for grace and God's good work on earth that he invented flavor. And some of you, you're like, I don't get down with steak. Well, sometimes you're supposed to eat some crispy kale right out of the oven and do the best you can to praise the Lord. So here's the thing.

We don't carry these feasts over into the Christian calendar. So when Christianity starts in among a Jewish people, starts with Jesus who's Jewish and his disciples who are Jewish and it explodes among Jewish people and they thought, here's the Messiah. He's going to save the Jews. And then all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit does something weird and he saves people who aren't Jewish. And they had to have a meeting. And this is a thing that Christians do forever is the Holy Spirit does something and then we have a meeting about it to see if we're okay with it.

So they have to have a meeting to be like, are we cool with this? Can the Holy Spirit save people who aren't Jewish? And they decide in Acts 15 to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit and they say, yes, he can save non-Jews. And they have a discussion about, are we going to export Judaism or were they saved just by Christ? Do they need all the practices of the law? And here's the meeting they have in Acts 15.

They look at each other and they say, guys, we're not even good at the practices of the law. Why would we give those to these people who've been saved by grace in Jesus without it? I'm reading between the lines but they kind of said that would be mean and unhelpful. So they say, no, they just get Jesus. And so the Jewish people continue to practice some of the feasts and the festivals and some of the practices of the law. They continue to practice them but they practice them in grace and in understanding that this is part of their heritage and who Christ is and that they're Jewish but they hand off to all the Gentiles just Jesus and all the stuff we have in the New Testament.

So we don't carry, we don't import all of the things from the Old Testament to the New Testament but what we do understand is that God did design this rhythm and so that it makes sense for us as Christians to celebrate Easter when Christ rose from the grave and to celebrate well and to be grateful. It is okay for us as Christians to celebrate other holidays and other times and other vacations for us to have time set aside where we're going to be grateful, we're going to celebrate, we're going to honor God, we're going to gather together, we're going to make a big deal out of how big and good He is but not necessarily all the feasts and everything that we see in the Old Testament. Okay, so John chapter 2. Now this is just a story about Jesus.

It's His first public miracle, His first public sign that He displays His glory in and I love this story. So we're just going to kind of spend some time in the story and then we're going to talk out of it. I want to point out a few things. The main point of this story is that God, that Jesus shows His divinity, shows that He is God and this is His first public miracle. That's kind of the main point John's hanging on this. But there's so much beauty in that whenever we see Jesus working and acting on the earth, we get a picture of who God is.

He's the perfect image of the invisible God. So sometimes people think, well how would God act towards me? How would God treat me? We get to look at Jesus and answer a lot of those questions. And so we see God's heart carried over in celebration in this story. And then, I also think we see a beautiful picture of, a small picture in this moment of what Jesus is ultimately going to do.

And so we know that we were created for celebratory rest, for vacation, for holiday. There was times and seasons we're meant to do that. And in this, I want to spend a little time talking about this story and then I want to help try to prove the idea that Christians should be better at this than anyone else. Alright, but let's spend a little time in this story. John chapter 2, verse 1. On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there.

Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. He's just getting started. He has about five disciples at this point. He's going to keep recruiting. Okay, pause for a second. Wedding in Cana.

We've got to understand this. This was a small town near probably where Jesus grew up in Galilee. Jesus' mom's there so it's likely that they were related to some of these people. Weddings then work a little differently. So they would, parents would work out who you were going to marry.

They would go pay the bride price. The groom would go pay a bride price. It's kind of a negotiation thing. So like, you know how like now when you have to go like meet their parents or whatever? In this day, you've got to take your parents with you. Made it nicer.

So anyway, they work it out and then the groom leaves and he goes and prepares a place. So they work out. We're going to get married. It's going to be at least a year. He goes and prepares a place near his father's house. His father kind of keeps looking.

To see if he's prepared it well enough. This is where Jesus says things like, I'm going to go prepare a place for you. That's husband-wife talk. That's bridegroom talk. When Jesus says, I don't know the day or the hour but the father does, that's bridegroom talk because the father keeps getting to look at the place the son's preparing and then he signs off on, okay, this is good enough. You can go get your wife now.

So then, when the father says that, like he walks in, I'm sure he walked in sometimes and he's like, yeah, you going to bring your wife in here? See any crown mold? Y'all going, this is, uh-huh, you got some work to do, boy. And you leave, you know, and finally he says, okay, this is good enough, go get her. They go marching in. This is the story where Jesus tells later where he says that the groom shows up and everybody had to be ready.

They just kind of knew at some point he's going to show up but they didn't know exactly where he comes marching in. He gets the bride. They march back out. They have a wedding ceremony that was kind of small and then after consummating the marriage, they have a week-long, five to seven-day long celebration. It was all part of it and everybody gets pretty much invited to that. So that's kind of the zone we're in.

We're at this wedding. We're at this party, this week-long wedding celebration that Jesus and his disciples were invited to. When the wine ran out, it just got intense. Now the story's taking a turn on us. This is bad news. All right, so Jesus was invited to the wedding with his disciples, verse three.

When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. I love this moment in human history where the God of the universe has to interact with his mother on earth. Here's what happens.

She apparently knows they don't have any wine. We don't know how related to, close to the situation, but she's heard they don't have any wine. This is a problem. Wine was the predominant drink you would be drinking. They wouldn't have had water and other drinks. They would have wine mostly.

It is alcoholic, but it's not as alcoholic as the wine we have now, most likely. It was regular drinking wine for the whole extent of this party. We don't know how far in we are, but we know that it was the groom's family's responsibility to provide wine, to provide this feast. And all of a sudden, now there's going to be this kind of shadow, this dark cloud hanging over this family that they didn't do this well. They didn't. It kind of starts the whole marriage off in a little bit of, it's a problem.

And so Jesus' mom is involved somehow. She goes to Jesus and she just says, Jesus, they've run out of wine. Now, she apparently knows something about Jesus. She thinks he can handle this. Now, there are stories that aren't in the Bible that people have kind of made up about Jesus doing miracles his whole childhood. We don't buy into all of those.

We don't know that. We aren't given much understanding of Jesus' childhood or his youth or whatever, but she feels like Jesus can handle this wine problem. So there's got to be something. She's seen enough. You know, she saw the angel show up telling him he was God. So she thinks maybe he can handle this.

I don't know. She comes to him. She says, they're out of wine. And Jesus says, woman, what does this have to do with me? Now, most of y'all would get in trouble if you called your mom woman. Jesus was not being disrespectful.

It is a sin to be disrespectful. Jesus was not being disrespectful. As best we can tell, this is a kind of a term of endearment, but also a little bit of a, you know, maybe some mix between ma'am and mama, but it was a little bit of like, like I might always say mama with a long pause. What does this have to do with me? Not the caterer. Like that's kind of what he's saying.

He says, he says, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. So what he's saying is I'm not here to, this isn't, this is my plan. I'm not doing, this isn't really what I'm, they're out of wine. That's, I'm sorry. And you know what his mama does?

She listens to him. And then she looks at the servants, says, y'all do whatever he tells you. And she walks. She doesn't respond to him. She just, and isn't that like a mama come tell you what to do in front of your disciples and everything. So she just says, do whatever he tells you.

And I just, I can't, I can just kind of see Jesus just, he doesn't say this. I can just see him watching her walk away like, now he's got to do something. So it says, now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. Okay. Stone water jars, Jewish rites of purification. The Jewish rites of purification were stuff that the rabbis had added over time to be a little bit extra holy.

It wasn't in the law, but it was like, this is good. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing to wash our hands before we eat, to wash our cups and our dishes in this special ceremonial way. But it was added. It wasn't stuff God had handed down. It was stuff that was added.

So God did give specific laws about how to celebrate and how to have ceremonies and how to have sacrifices. And this was just added. For example, maybe your grandmother told you when you go to church on Sunday, you better dress as nice as possible. I can't, like I don't know about my, my grandmother would go, like if I was wearing, if I was wearing this, like I think it's bothered her when she comes on Sundays. It's nice to dress up. We got some folks here who do it, who do it well.

It's not in the Bible though. Sunday best was, came up somewhere else. They didn't hear. Now it's nice to be respectful. It's nice to dress well. So it's a good thing that sometime at some point became codified.

Do this or you're wrong. That's what happened with these ceremonial jars. So Jesus sees these giant jars and I, again, doesn't say this. I think he cracks a smile. He says, fill those up. Fill the jars with water.

They filled them up to the brim. He said to them, now draw some out, take it to the master of the feast. So they took it, the head caterer. When the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine and did not know where it came from. Though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom. So here's what he did.

He took these ceremonial jars for this practice that you were going to have to do to make yourself a little bit more holy, make yourself a little more pleasing to God, to be one of the good guys. He says, fill those up and he turns it into wine. Do you know what you can't do with the ceremonial jars anymore? Wash your hands. They're filled with wine. So Jesus just took these ceremonial jars and he continued the party.

He served this family. He says, fill them with wine. Okay. The master of the feast called the bridegroom. So, here's what we know. Master of the feast is over top of this.

So he just says, take it to the master of the feast. Somebody's heading up this. You know the master of the feast has to think, hey, we've run out of wine. At some point he just said, hey, this wine's gone. He may not know fully that there's no other wine anywhere else. This isn't like, he just says, hey, we're out of wine.

They go back and look and they're like, oh no, we're out of wine, out of wine. This is going to be embarrassing. This is going to be problematic for the family. I don't know the bride and groom, how well they know each other. I don't know how that was going. I don't know if she was like, we're getting low on wine.

He's like, oh no. She's like, if you hadn't had to invite your whole village and all your friends that drink so much and if your cousins hadn't showed up four days early. Like, I don't know how that's going. I don't know if they're arguing. I don't know if she just does the look thing. If she's just like, I don't know.

It's stressful for the groom. He's got to know, like he's over top of, the master of the feast is over top of this stuff. Other people are finding out Jesus' mom's in on it and then the master of the feast comes and he does like this to the groom. And you know, at that moment, I just can imagine his stomach just tied in a knot. He knows what's coming. Master of the feast holding a wine glass.

He's going to walk over there and he's going to say, last cup. You want to announce it? You want me to announce it? You want me to end the party early? You want me to end the party early? Calls him over there.

Yes, sir. He said to him, verse 10, everyone serves the good wine first. Groom thinks, yep, they drank that. And when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. He's like, yep, drank that. But when you have kept the good wine until now.

And the train of thought in the groom's head just crashed all into it. He's like, what? This is the first of his signs Jesus did at the Canaan in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. So the master of the feast says, hey, you did this in reverse. This is the best wine you've had and you're just now bringing it out. Cool party trick.

Either that or he was just like, hey, next time you have a wedding, do it the other way, moron. I don't know if he's corrected him. Jesus not only made the wine to serve his mom and to serve this family, but he made good wine. Then it says, this is the first of his signs. This is kind of the point of the story as John tells it. Jesus did at Canaan in Galilee and manifested his glory, put on display who he was and his disciples believed in him.

After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples and they stayed there for a few days. So after this wedding, he goes and spends more time, just spending time with family. Now, I love this story because it shows us the heart of God and how he serves and how he loves and how he approaches celebration. He wasn't there looking down on it. He was there enjoying it. And it's a beautiful picture of what he's done for us in the gospel.

You see, we're like the groom having to do so much to just make this good, having to do so much for this just to be okay, having to do so much for this to just work out and we're failing. We don't have enough. We can't do it. Our tank's empty. We don't have anything that we can do. And Jesus comes along and he takes all the ceremony and he brings joy.

He covers us. He takes all the ceremony, all the extra work, all the effort we would put in and he brings new wine. And you see, Jesus is ultimately able to do this because this is what he does on the cross. He took all of the law and all the weight of the commandments that we had to fulfill and all of the weight of having to stand before God and be made okay and he dies for us. It's actually he tells his disciples the night before when he shares a cup of wine with them and he says, this is the covenant in my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. That he's going to be the better wine.

That he's going to cover us and bring joy where there was anxiety, to bring hope where there was despair, and to absolutely bring us into a celebration. We're told in Revelation that when he comes to get his bride, he brings him to a wedding feast. That Jesus in his first miracle was at a wedding feast and he was picturing what he was ultimately going to do. And this is why I believe that not only is humanity designed for celebratory rest, holiday, vacation, but that Christians should be better at it than anybody else because we have the gospel. We've already been invited into the party. We've already been set free from our work.

We've already been given the ability to set our tools down, to rest well, to enjoy each other and enjoy God's good work on our behalf. And we don't need the party. We don't need the celebration here. We can just enjoy it. We don't have to have it to have a good life. We don't have to find a way to celebrate and to enjoy.

It's not frantic. It's just enjoyable. That we get to celebrate. We get to rest. We get to take a vacation and we get to do all that knowing that we've already ultimately had Jesus die for us, save us, redeem us, and provide for us in the cross. The story of Christmas Carol is about Scrooge McDuck and he, I have a three-year-old, so that's the version I watch.

He loves money. That's all he cares about. And then his friend Goofy, who had passed away, shows up at his house the night before Christmas and scares the living daylights out of him. And then he goes on these three. He gets to go back in time. He gets to go to the present and kind of see what's going on.

He gets to go to the future. And the story is that he sees this picture of what his life has been like, what his life is like now, and what it's going to be. That he's invited to look kind of behind the curtain and see who he is and what he's like and where he's headed. And he's kind of told at the end, it's too late. And then he wakes up and it's not too late. And the last line of the Charles Dickens novel, short story, is that it was always said of him that he kept Christmas well.

That from that day on, it was always said that like, there's a person who knows how to celebrate. And it was because he had gotten a picture of where he was headed and he had gotten set free from it. And that's kind of how we get to be as Christians. We get to be the people that said they celebrate well. They know how to do it. They know how to rest.

They know how to celebrate because we've gotten to see where we were headed and what our sin was going to do and how our work was going to fail. And we've been set free. We've gotten to see Christ die for us to rescue us and to redeem us and all of the weight and the pressure is off. That we're redeemed by Christ and so we can celebrate and enjoy and rest well. So here's how we're going to finish our time.

I'm going to give us some specific pictures of this. We're going to take a little bit of time to talk through this so that we get to, as Christians, kind of celebrate up. We get to roll our enjoyment up. It's not just terminating on the thing here. When you eat a good steak, it's not just the steak that gets praise, but it's Jesus who gets praise. When you enjoy a good vacation here, it's not just the vacation.

It's not just the place you went. It's not just how the days went. It's not just that you were off work, but that we get to roll it up in praise and glory and honor to Jesus who provides all of that for us. Okay. So how do we capture this?

How do we enjoy this? First one is that we begin to value celebration. Some of us just don't. You just don't value celebration. You don't make time for it. Valuing celebration really practically means you budget for it.

You start looking and saying, hey, we're going to have to set aside for this. That's one of the things that in the feasts in the Old Testament, he would say, I'm going to bless you. I want you to set aside a portion of this to come celebrate. That's why he says, nobody shows up empty handed, but everybody would have showed up with a kind of what fit their celebration, what fit their life, what fit their budget, but there to celebrate. So we budget for it.

We also have to schedule for it. If you're going to take a vacation, you have to be intentional about setting aside time. If you're going to enjoy a holiday, you have to be intentional about setting aside time, asking off of work, planning it. I know some people don't take vacations because of the type of work they're in. So they feel like, well, if I go on vacation, I miss out on sales.

If I go on vacation, somebody else will be able to do that listing. Somebody else will be able to show those homes. If I go on vacation, somebody else is going to, and they just have this kind of a frantic approach to there's no way I can be gone. Now, certainly, some of you maybe have seasonal work and you work around that. My family's run a pool store pretty much my whole life. We had to work around how we vacationed because during the summer is not the best time to do stuff because people want to buy swimming pools.

So we had to plan on it and work around it. We skipped school the first week of school a lot to go on vacation because my parents wanted to sell swimming pools. And I'm going to tell you I was a child I was cool with that. But Exodus 34, 24, God actually tells the people of Israel, I want all the males to gather. You have to be there. And during that time, you won't get attacked.

During that time, I'll defend your borders. And so there's something about us taking rest and taking vacation where we get to say, hey God, I'm resting and celebrating and vacating and doing this holiday because I trust that you're good, that you've provided. I want to celebrate that. And I'm going to trust that you'll take care of everything while I'm here. It's a faith thing. Some people will say, well, I can't take a vacation.

I can't do this because it costs too much money. Yes, it can be expensive, but there's ways to do this cheaply. You can stay home and just take off time from work and figure out ways to rest there. You can go camping. That's cheap. Some people like when you celebrate, you can go to, my family used to rent a room at a hotel in town just so we could use the pool.

My dad used to take us for a big day out to the dump to shoot at rats with a.22. You can find things to do. Y'all just learned a thing about me. Yes, that was what my family was like when I was growing up. This means, students, when there's time off, when there's vacation, when your family's going on a vacation, when there's a holiday that you're getting carried off somewhere to your family's house, some of y'all do that really well. Some of y'all pout your way through it.

And we're supposed to value it, to enjoy it. It also means that because your schedule's different from everybody else because you have school and then you have the summer off, it means that there's times where you actually, you're not exempt from this. You need to hold something special and you need to make some time to enjoy the time off. Also, to continue to be busy for six days and rest one. Some people say, well, it's really hard for me to rest. It's really hard for me to vacation during this time because I'm just, I'm in pain physically or I'm in pain emotionally.

And yes, there are seasons of that. And so there are times where this one's going to be really hard for you. But that can't continue forever because we also are called to rejoice, commanded to rejoice and to find ways to appreciate all the good that God has given to us and done for us. I had a pastor friend say, when we were first getting started with planning the church, he said, you've got to, he said, pastoring, and some of y'all's jobs are like this, but he said, pastoring is like being on a treadmill. It just, it never ends. You never run out of people to talk with.

Sin never stops. You don't ever reach a season where you're like, hey, we did it. We all have our act together. That's true. That's not even true for me. Like, we don't.

I have continual sin I have to confess to my group. Like, we don't ever really get off of it. And he said, you've got to find ways to get off the treadmill and pop the champagne. And that's part of what we're called to do is to value and to find a way to say, hey, I know work never stops. I know this will never cease. I know the kids are not, but I'm just going to get off and celebrate.

I'm going to find something to enjoy, something to celebrate. Okay. Celebrate with purpose. So some of you are, you do go on vacations. You do celebrate holidays, but you lose the purpose. Thanksgiving is about food rather than thankfulness.

And so we've got to find a way to be purposeful in our celebration, to actually have it be rejoicing before the Lord, not just rejoicing. That as Christians, our rejoicing does not terminate here, but that it rolls up in praise. So it is rejoicing in the thing we're rejoicing in, but it's rolling up to him. So that means we infuse things with meaning. I have to be really careful with this because I am a pastor. And so people real quick, like I want to be like, hey, let's talk about Jesus.

And my family's like, hey, let's just eat the food. And I have to be real careful with that because it's real quick. Like they don't, you know, they're waiting for me to be like, hey, let's say a thing we're thankful for. And they're like, okay, grandma. Like it just is, it's hard. So I have to try to find ways to sneak around this.

I know a pastor who's in Tacoma, Washington. He said that, you know, they were doing a party and he was helping put it on and they kind of just said, hey, you're a pastor. Will you pray right before we do this? And it was a 4th of July thing. And he said, that was just a token. We know you're a pastor.

We don't believe this stuff, but this is probably a thing you do. And so he said, in order to not just pastor it up, he just said, hey, take a second. It's 4th of July. Think about a thing that you appreciate about being free. And then in a second, I'm just going to quickly thank the Lord that we get to be a part of that. And he said, it was real quick, but it was just something to infuse it with meaning.

I try to, at Christmas, try to make things not just about gifts for my son. I know that's what he's going to get super focused in on, that at Christmas he gets things. So the night before, I put him in a room and cut the lights off. I told him everything was scary and dark and terrible. He was 2. Totally age appropriate.

And that God had sent hope into the world. And so we lit a candle, also age appropriate because he loved anything that was like fire was like a big deal to him. So it was like, boom, lit a candle. And then we just talked about how ultimately Christ came. He was the hope. He was the redemption.

We cut the lights on. Then we went outside and we followed the star, which was cloudy, so it was just the moon. I was like, there's the star. Let's go. We ran around our house. We get to the back.

He goes, Daddy, that's the moon. And I was like, well, aren't you clever? So anyway, but I tried to find something. You got to find something to make it special, to pour some meaning into it. This means making some things holy. There's some people who are entering a new stage of life in our church family that are older couples.

Maybe your kids, you're now kind of empty nesters. People have moved out and they come to you and that's kind of new. So a lot of times when you're growing up, you go to other people, but now your family comes back to you. And this means making some things holy, something set apart that's special for, we're going to eat this dish. We're going to have these plates. We're going to have this kind of a moment when we have this celebration.

But you set something aside so that this indicates that we're celebrating. This indicates that we're, they used to have in the Old Testament, they'd have a fattened calf. Maybe some of y'all need to put a calf in your backyard and when your family comes, I'm just kidding. But like some kind of, we eat turkey, we eat this. I take the time to prepare this dish that takes a week long. For my grandmother, that's cinnamon rolls and ham biscuits.

She makes in preparation for her family to come and when I taste the cinnamon roll and I smell ham biscuits, I know it's Christmas. Something that you set apart. For newly married people, this is you making your own new traditions. Carrying over some things from your parents, but learning how to have your own traditions. For single people, sometimes I know that single people will be like, well, what's the point? What's the point in celebrating well?

What's the point in partaking in this holiday? And you've acted as if the point of a holiday is just a spouse, just another person that you would enjoy it with and you're completely negating the fact that the point of holidays is Jesus and ability to worship Him and to enjoy Him. So take the time to figure out how to do that well and also go hang out with your church family. Go be around them to remind you of all the good joy and good that God's put in your life. We celebrate milestones. So this is moments.

This is birthdays, graduations, weddings. I know some of y'all find out about a graduation, you find out about a wedding, you find out about a birthday and you just feel like, I don't want to go. I have no desire to participate in that. And I understand that because I'm kind of like that and my wife's kind of like that and you need to go and you need to celebrate and you need to learn how to enjoy and celebrate well because we're supposed to be good at this. That we celebrate milestones. For birthdays, sometimes people are like, well, it's hard to celebrate birthdays.

It's so expensive now. When I was growing up, we did, on your birthday, you got the ride in the front of the vehicle. You were in charge of the TV for the whole day and my mom, you got to pick what everybody had for dinner. Not like separate things. I couldn't be like, he's going to eat sticks. It was like, you got to pick the main dish.

But that was a way to make it special. When we had no, my dad would take the little coat hanger things with the sticky part at the bottom and he would break that and he would take telephone line and put it and make us nunchucks so that we could be Ninja Turtles and that cost him very little money. And he gave me those every year for my birthday because you would hit your brother with them and they'd break. So you had to ask for them again the next year. But finding ways to make something special even when it's difficult or your budget doesn't allow it, this is something we're supposed to do.

I think this is something you're supposed to do in other things. Make a milestone. So my son, when he turned two, we were getting rid of his pacifiers. So we had a big ceremony. Again, let him light a candle because the kid was digging some fire at that point. So we lit a candle.

We talked about how he was turning into a big boy. I put all his pacifiers and he had them in his mouth all the time. Put them all in his hand and we held them over the trash can and then we celebrated and we sang and danced and we made a big deal out of it for two reasons. One is a big deal that he was growing up and two, I wanted him to remember it when he asked me for a pacifier later. I was like, no bro, you've got to light a candle. Pacifiers are done.

Don't you remember us dancing? We can't go back to that. You can't unlight the candle, kid. Come on. But infusing things with meaning.

Celebrating milestones. Celebrate with your group, with your community group. This is something we're designed to do as Christians is to celebrate well with each other. Some of us, when you get the email or the Facebook message or the group meeting and it says, hey, we're just going to be hanging out this week, you think, not me. Y'all going to be hanging out with your own selves? If it's just dinner, if it's just board games, I'm going to be at the house.

And you've missed the point of enjoying each other and of getting to be family, of getting to have ridiculous moments that you get to do difficult things with each other. You get to mourn with each other. You get to hurt with each other. You get to serve each other. You get to be on mission together to try to see people meet Jesus and you get to play that little heads up game and accomplish nothing other than being friends with each other. And we're designed for that to make time for that.

The last one, we get to celebrate as missionaries. You see, Jesus went to that party and he displayed who he was and we get to go to parties and display who he is. We get to celebrate as missionaries. There are rhythms of celebration in our city. There are rhythms of celebration in your neighborhood that you get to take part in. Maybe you don't care about Halloween at all, but your neighbors do.

So go buy some candy and go meet your neighbors. It's the one time a year they're going to come knock on your door and actually appreciate getting to see and talk to you. Only time. It's also the only time you get to go knock on their doors and they'll be okay with seeing and talking to you. Try that in the middle of June. Go knock on your neighbor's doors with your child and be like, hey, we just wanted to meet y'all.

They will act like you were psychotic. But Halloween, put a mask on that kid, you get to meet all your neighbors. You get to celebrate as a missionary. You get to take part in what the city's already doing to welcome people and get to know people. This is us doing some things with Thanksgiving at Gentle Pines where we take a holiday that means something and we take extra time out to go to a neighborhood around here and serve meals and get to know the residents there. Maybe this is Fourth of July or New Year's, but you get to find out what, you get to do what Jesus did was find out what the party's lacking and show up and serve.

Maybe that's somebody who needs to stay after and clean. Maybe that's somebody who needs to give some rides. Maybe that's somebody who needs to bring some extra food. But we do what Jesus did and we bring the better wine. And we always get to celebrate without debauchery. The point of the celebration for us is enjoying all the good gifts God gave us.

So we do eat, we do drink, but we're not gluttons and we're not drunkards. We're not overdoing it. The point isn't the party, the point is Jesus and so we enjoy the good things he gave us and in praise and honor and glory to him. A lack of ability to celebrate is a failure to believe this aspect of the gospel. That if you can't party, if you can't rest, if you can't vacation, you've missed out on some of the good joy and rejoicing that Jesus has brought into the world. And so we ought to believe the gospel fully and learn how to party well.

Because Jesus, when he rose from the grave, started the celebration for all those who would believe in him. Band's going to come back up. We're going to sing a couple of songs in celebration and then in our community groups this week, we're going to enjoy each other, celebrate, and accomplish a whole lot of nothing with each other and you need to be there. And if you're not there, we're going to ask all the group leaders and we're going to list your names next Sunday. Let's pray.

God, we thank you that you're good and that in the cross we have hope and joy and life and celebration. And we pray that we would honor you well by celebrating well. We would honor you well by celebrating with joy and hope and honor you and all the things that we partake in that are good. We thank you for flavor. We thank you for that when we are excited something about us wants to dance or to shout or to sing. We thank you for all those holy moments that you've written into the world and in our lives that we get to honor you and praise you and glorify you and we pray that we would.

We pray that we'd do all of that without sinning and displaying your glory just the way you did in your first miracle. We love you. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Y'all stand. Let's sing.

Mill City 7/15/18 Mill City 7/15/18

Practicing Sabbath

Transcript

Good morning. All right. My name is Spencer Carey. Like I said before, I'm pastor and training here with Mill City Church. We have taken the last four weeks and the next two weeks to walk through a series called The Hammer and the Hammock. And the hope of this series has been to grow in our theology of work and rest.

Because as a church and culturally, we are terrible at that balance and how we honor God. We spent the first three weeks mostly talking about work. The last three are mostly on rest. Last week, Chet got to address some of the heart level issues and how we justify ourselves and our overwork that we never deal with what he called the inner murmur, this endless, restless drive to work and to please and to work and to strive. And we make that as a justification for how we don't rest. And he kind of gave us a vision for what rest is supposed to be, for what Sabbath is supposed to be.

And then he kind of left us hanging. Like he didn't give us practicals for a reason because this week we get to practically walk this out and see how we can practically Sabbath. But on the front end, I want to be clear about what the Sabbath is. It is one day a week where we cease from work and we confess with our rest that we are not God. God. It is one day a week where we cease from our work and we confess with our rest that we are not God.

I heard a pastor mention a word, a Japanese word called karoshi as it pertains to rest. The history of that word is that in the after World War II, after we decimated Japan with all the bombings that we did, it completely destroyed their country and destroyed their economy. And one of the ways that their new prime minister said that they're going to build the economy back is through really, really hard work ethic. So they did. I mean, they're the third largest economy in the world and they built it. But one of the consequences for the work ethic that they put into their people is that people started to work themselves literally to death.

They had to invent a term in the 70s called karoshi, which means death by overwork. And it still affects their culture today. There are stories of people who will put 80 hours of overtime work in a week and they will literally work themselves into insanity and commit suicide. There are stories of people in their young 30s who put in so much work, they die of heart failure, that they get strokes, that their government has had to step in and put policies in to keep this from happening. Now, I would say that we are not quite like that culturally, that we don't work us work ourselves into instant death, but I would argue we karoshi ourselves slowly, that it's a slow death for us.

I mean, you can read study after study after study of what we do to ourselves. We put work and all kinds of stress on ourselves, that it slowly takes years off of our lives, that we slowly work ourselves to death. Now, that begs the question, why? Why can we not work and work and work and thrive? Why is it that we suffer because of our overwork? Well, we see from the scriptures that it is because we are limited by design.

We are limited beings made in the image of an unlimited God and He has chosen to make us limited so that we might rely on Him. And that means that our body needs rest, it needs refreshing, and that's what Shet was getting at last week. Today, we get to tackle that practically. So, if you are a note taker, today was made for you. Some of you take notes, like this is your time to shine. You can take notes.

Sometimes, as we are teaching, I'd rather you get caught up in the narrative of it all, but today you actually get to take notes. And if you are not a note taker, I would encourage you this week to take some notes. There's pens pretty much everywhere. I made sure of that, so you can take notes. If you are morally opposed to taking notes because it reminds you of how the system used to oppress you when you were in school for 12 plus years, then do your best to engage and to walk out of here with some mental nuggets of how we can grow in our patterns of rest. We're going to start out in Exodus 20, the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments on the Sabbath.

And we're going to walk through this. After we walk through this, we're going to see what the Sabbath is and what it isn't. And then we're going to put some handles on how we can practically Sabbath. I'll pray and then we will dive in. Father, I thank you for the good news of the gospel. I thank you that you give us rest.

God, I pray that as we work through this today, you would give us a vision and some handles on how we can learn to rest well in you. Amen. Exodus 20, starting in verse 8, it says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

On it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. So to read this, you've got to look at the back end.

When it says in verse 11, For in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. That is rooted in the story of Genesis and the story of creation. That means that the Sabbath is a rhythm of creation. That it is eternal and it is meant for everybody. That God put this as a rhythm that we might obey all of God's people and everyone who's made in the image of God.

And what's really interesting that we don't have a lot of time to get into today is that an infinite God who we know from the Psalms never sleeps, never slumbers. An infinite God shows to rest on the seventh day that he might model rest for us who are limited. And that is a rhythm that carries through. And then as the law is being handed down in Exodus, we see it's a commandment here. And then we see kind of ups the ante a little bit. In Exodus 31, 14, it says, Everyone who profanes it, who doesn't obey it, shall be put to death.

That there's a seriousness that's brought to the Sabbath. There's actually a death penalty attached to it. So why did God want his people to take this command so seriously? I can think of two immediate reasons. Firstly, the Israelites had just left being slaves for 400 plus years. That in Egypt, they belonged to Pharaoh and their worth was in their work and what they could produce as slaves.

And God redeems the people of Israel and he says, You are no longer Pharaoh's, you are mine and your worth is not in your work and what you can produce. And one way I'm going to remind you of that is that one day a week you will cease. As the Sabbath is translated rest or cease to be. That you will rest. And I think secondly, like all of the law, there's a seriousness to it. But there's also the idea that we won't perfectly fulfill the Sabbath.

We won't perfectly walk the law out. That it's pointing forward to the one who will in Christ. So there's a seriousness brought to the law. And like much of the law, the nation of Israel, they responded poorly. At times, they just forgot the Sabbath completely. But what we see is on the other end of the spectrum is that there was a tradition that took the Sabbath ultra, ultra seriously and started adding things to it.

They made it more of a sacrifice. There is a group of laws called the Shabbat laws. Shabbat is just Hebrew for Sabbath. And there's 39 categories of work. And in it, there's like hundreds of laws that you could and could not do. And those still, they still exist and they're in the context of the day.

When I was in Israel about seven, eight years ago, I was in Jerusalem. And I remember that I was in a hotel. And as I was in a hotel on their Sabbath, I went to use the elevator. And the button was already lit up. And the elevator door opened. And I stepped in.

And I looked and I saw all of the buttons were lit up. Because on the Sabbath in Israel today, you cannot push buttons. Because if you were to push a button, that's considered work. And you'd be breaking Sabbath laws. So it was really annoying, especially if you were like me and you were on one of the top floors.

Because literally every single floor, it opens, it closes. It opens and it closes. And if you needed to get anywhere in a hurry, you'd be in trouble. And there's all kinds of laws like that that still exist today. They're really absurd. And there were also laws like that at the time that Jesus comes on the scene.

And he jumps in and starts critiquing how they have approached the Sabbath. In Matthew 12, Jesus and his disciples, they are plucking the heads of grains in a field. And the religious leaders, they see him do this. And they say, you're breaking the Sabbath. And then Jesus, he jumps in. And he quotes Hosea 6-6 from the Old Testament.

He says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. They had lost it. What the purpose of the Sabbath was. It was supposed to be a mercy. It was supposed to be a grace. And they made it a sacrifice.

They made it a burden. Then he says, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. He drops the mic. And that's kind of it. I mean, through the rest of the Gospels, that's kind of the gist of how Jesus, he approaches the Sabbath. And there's not much in the rest of the New Testament on the Sabbath.

It kind of leaves us a little bit hanging. And as we try to see that, yes, this is a creation rhythm that is meant to be eternal, but it's not meant to be a burden. We try to walk this out in the New Testament as a New Testament church and getting more practical. And that's what the hope is today. That we would see it for what it is. That it is one day a week.

We cease from work. And we confess with our rest that we are not God. But before we put practical handles on it, I want to quickly go through what it is and what it isn't. So firstly, the Sabbath is a day of rest. It is a day of rest once a week. For the Jews, that was Friday night to Saturday night.

That was their Sabbath. They measured days from evening to evening. So that was their Sabbath. And the New Testament church, we see a tradition that falls out of that. They made Sunday the day that the church would Sabbath. Because Sunday was the day that the Lord resurrected.

And that is why the tradition that comes out of that is that the church gathers together for worship. But they also gather together to rest on Sundays. Now there's a movement that happened out of this. They call themselves Sabbatarians. It's just a fancy way of saying that you have to obey the Sabbath. And it has to be on Sunday.

And if the church isn't Sabbathing on Sunday, if God's people aren't resting on Sunday, then you are living in sin. And that movement actually was carried over to America. It actually shaped much of American culture, which is one of the reasons we have Sunday off. And Saturday off comes from the Jewish calendar. And it shaped much of our culture. And it still exists a little bit today.

But if you look at the New Testament, there's not a case that can be made for that. The Sunday has to be the day that the Sabbath happens. You just don't see that. You see it form out of tradition, but you don't see that everyone has to have their Sabbath on the Sunday. But I'd argue that it is probably the best time for you to Sabbath.

That if many of you that don't work on Sunday, because you grew up in this country where you have a tradition of having Sunday off, if you don't work on Sunday, I'll argue that Sunday is probably the best day for you to take your Sabbath. And the reason why is because the Sabbath by nature is meant to be communal. It's meant to be a time where the church communes together and Sabbaths together. That's why the nation of Israel, they would Sabbath together as a nation the same way. It's meant to be something that we do together. So if you're not like me, I have work on Sundays, whether it's doing real estate, whether it's ministry, if you're not like me and you have the freedom to have Sunday off, Sunday should be the time that you choose to rest with the rest of the church.

So the Sabbath is a day of rest. It is not work. Sabbath is not work. Now we're going to get into the practicals of learning how to Sabbath, but this needs to be clearly stated on the front end. It is not work. It is designed for us to help us reboot, to help reorient our hearts towards grace, towards God.

And your work takes away from that. Now we're going to get practical and walk through some activities. And as I do that, some of you are going to immediately go to, oh, I can do this and I can do that. And I can get that accomplished. I've got some freedom here. And if that is you, if you're like me and you're looking for loopholes, you need to pull back.

This is meant to be rest. It is not work. The Sabbath is worshipful. It is designed to be worshipful. That is why the church has gathered for thousands of years on the Sabbath to worship like we're doing now, to sing songs, to read scripture, to hear the word preached. It is meant to be worshipful together as we have our hearts formed and shaped and knowing more of who Jesus is.

So part of that is gathering together for worship. Another part of that is incorporating God's word into your Sabbath. That on your day of rest, on your Sabbath, you might open up God's word. You might read in it. You might sit in it. You might meditate on it.

Because God's word is what forms us and shapes us and reminds us of who God is. That your Sabbath needs to be filled with prayer. And one of my favorite ways of resting and incorporating prayer, when it's not like 100 degrees and melting outside, is to go outside and to walk and to see the sky and God's creation and His handiwork and to be reminded of who He is and what He has done for us and just talk to Him and just pray. It needs to be filled with God's word. It needs to be filled with prayer. It needs to be filled with fellowship.

That's why we gather here. One of the reasons we gather here on Sunday is that we might fellowship. If you are extroverted and you are fueled by people, it could be a good idea for you to connect with people. If you are introverted, we're glad you're here. And we want you to be here regularly. And be wise.

Meet with some people, but also take some time for yourself. The Sabbath is meant to be worshipful. It is not escape. The Sabbath is not escape. We have confused restfulness with escape. It is so easy for us to think, oh, I'm going to chill out.

I'm going to escape. Like how many of us have watched like five hour-long episodes on Netflix. And after those five hours, I thought, man, I'm really refreshed. I feel so much better now. No. You don't feel better after you've watched five hours of a show.

It's even worse because Netflix puts up a little reminder and says, are you still watching? You get judged by a company that makes money off of you watching. It's not restful. That's escape. Escape. And we so often like to feel moments of silence with escape, whether it's Netflix, whether it's our phones.

Man, how often I will try to sit and just be in silence and pray or meditate, and I quickly grab my phone, and it just magically appears in my hand. And five minutes later, I'm like, oh, what are they doing today? It's like, what just happened? Or if I'm good, I'll put it away, and I put it away, and I feel this phantom vibration in my leg. That's addiction. That's a problem.

We are so prone to want to fill moments of silence, void moments with entertainment, with escape. And we need to fight that because we need to let that silence be, let God fill up that silence that we might be filled and fueled. The Sabbath is not meant for escape. So that's kind of what it is and what it isn't. It is a day of rest that we cease from work. We confess with our rest that we are not God.

So how? Like, how do we practically walk that out as a church family? I have about six handles we can walk through of how we can do this. The first one is decide to Sabbath. Now, I say that. Some of you just rolled your eyes.

Like, seriously? Like, that should be self-explanatory. You're deciding to Sabbath. Thanks a lot. That's a great start. No.

No. Decide the Sabbath. Because here's the deal. If you don't consciously make the decision that you are going to reshape your life to have a pattern of rest that happens once a week, you won't do it. You don't just stumble into patterns. Like, you don't just stumble into one to eat healthy and work out.

You don't just rock out at McDonald's and eat salads like it's nothing. You don't just end up three days a week in a gym. That's not how that works. You have to gear yourself up. You have to consciously decide, this is going to be a lifestyle for me and I'm going to do this. You have to decide to Sabbath and commit to it.

So step one, decide to Sabbath. Second, plan to Sabbath. You need to plan it. I had to stop in my sermon prep and repent. I had to, I realized, I mean, sometimes I can preach and I know I'm weak in areas and I can be a little bit self-deprecating, but man, I felt very hypocritical if I was going to think through one more thing that I was going to say. I had to stop because I don't, my tendency is that somewhere between Friday and Saturday I'm going to have a Sabbath and it just kind of shows up on a Friday.

I'm like, oh, I guess it's time to shut it down and then I get a phone call and then I respond to this and then Saturday I'm kind of like, oh yeah, and it just ends up not being restful at all. So I had to stop. I want to show you a little bit of what I was working on. I had to create a plan for Sabbathing. The top one is a week that I'm not preaching or a week that I don't have a ton of real estate. I'll sleep in until 7 and spend some time in the Word and get my kids up, make breakfast, maybe listen to a sermon, whatever.

From 8.45 to about 11.30, I can do sermon stuff, I can do real estate, but I'm shutting it down at 11.30. That's when it's going to begin. I can play with my kids during lunchtime as they go down to nap. We've started this new rhythm where I let my wife go. I was like, just vacate, go to, she loves Dunkin' Donuts, go to Dunkin', go wherever, spend some time, and then we usually have our date night on Friday. Saturday morning, I wake up, spend some time in the Word, do some restful activities that I'll get to in a minute, and then have lunch.

And that's, and the second one is if I have all Friday off, that's the plan I made. I had to get really practical because if I don't plan this, I'm not going to do this. You have to plan well to rest well. Because if you don't, you won't rest well. The nation of Israel, they understood this. They called this the day of preparation.

That there was a time that they would, before the Sabbath, they would get all of their work done so that when the Sabbath began on that Friday night, it'd all be done and they could check, they could begin to Sabbath rest. And the reality is is that it's actually, it's actually genius. The most productive week of work I've had this year was the week before I went on vacation. Because I was checking out and I had to get all of my work done. And the reality is is that if you, if you plan to rest, you're going to get a lot of work done as you prepare so that you can rest well. So for some of you, that means you're going to have to answer the emails, you're going to have to answer the phone calls, you're going to have to set up an auto reminder on your email, you're going to have to get real practical.

For some of you, there are activities that you would normally do that are really draining. Like for some of you, you like cooking. For some of you, it drains you. So maybe for your day of rest, you don't cook. Whether that means you prepared food the day before, whether that means you go out to eat, whether that means you order in food. Whatever it is, whatever kind of work that does not fuel you, that drains you, you get it done and you plan so that you don't have to work on the Sabbath.

You have to plan well to rest well. Third, value your Sabbath. Value your Sabbath. I was watching this TED Talk and this reporter was talking about this. She went to interview this high power CEO. This woman had four kids.

She owned her company. She was a CEO. And she went to interview her and she was talking to her assistant. She was like, how does Wednesday morning look? And the assistant said, well, actually, Wednesday morning through the afternoon, she's booked up. She's actually gone hiking in the mountains by herself, but we can pick another day.

And it baffled her. She's like, how in the world does a woman who's a CEO, has four kids, owns her own company, how does she, in the middle of a work week, to get to just check out and go hiking? So she asked her in the interview. And what she said was so telling. She said, you know, some people say, I don't have time for this. What they really mean is, I won't make time for this.

Because you will make time for what you value. She's like, I value time to get away. I value time to go and be in the mountains and to hike and to, like, that's what I value. So I make time for it. You make time for what you value. Man, that is so true.

I have a standing offer from one of my buddies. He works for KFC Corporate. And he gets to go to the Super Bowl every year because KFC's a sponsor in the NFL. And I asked him, I said, bro, if the Colts make it to the Super Bowl, will you take me? Well, he took down a heartbeat because he's like, y'all ain't making the Super Bowl. Not by the time I get another Job.

And I was like, deal. But let me tell you something. If somehow magically Andrew Luck comes back and he starts throwing just money and we start winning games and we somehow make it through the AFC Championship, you best believe on that Super Bowl Sunday, I'm going. I'm going to make time for it. Because that's a bucket list thing for me. I want to go just one time.

That's a big skill thing that we make value statements on. We do it all the time in the smaller things. How many of us this fall are going to clear all of Saturday for football? We'll make time for that because we value it. Fill in the blank. Maybe it's a TV show that comes on every week.

You are going to be there to see it. Maybe it's a TV show that gets released once a year. You're going to block off that weekend for it. You will make time for what you value. Fill in the blank. You will make time for it.

And my fear is is that many of us will hear this sermon. We'll walk through this series. We'll talk about rest in our community groups. And we might do it for a few weeks. We might do it for a couple of months. But then we're slowly going to drift back into the same stuff we've always been doing.

And that is going to be because we don't value the Sabbath enough. We don't value rest enough. Honestly, we've talked about this as pastors. That's one of the reasons why our gatherings, the average of our church family, the average member shows up twice a month to gatherings. That's why the seats are not... If everyone was here every week, we'd be filled up.

We'd have space issues. But we've realized that. And that's an indictment on us because we don't value Sabbath resting, worshiping together as a church. What you value, you will make time and space for. And we need to respond to that as we try to Sabbath. Fourth, Sabbath for the season you're in.

My wife and I, man, back when I was in seminary, we could drop what we were doing and we could go on a date night. We'd just drop, head on out, and we could do the whole thing for 20 bucks. Because in seminary, we didn't have money. I was paying for seminary as we went. I was like, we can do the whole thing for 20 months. Stop what we're doing and go for it.

That has changed. We have kids now. You don't stop and drop and go do anything. Like, you've got a plan. We've got to make sure we have sitters. That's going to be more than 20 bucks on top of what we're going to do.

So we've had to adjust for the season that we're in. And what has happened for many of you and for us is that we have not adjusted for the season we're in when it comes to Sabbath rest. Because some of you could just, on your day of rest, could just go to a coffee shop and spend hours there and read books, listen to podcasts and sermons and journal. Some of you could go kayaking all day. You could just check out, not tell anybody, go hiking all day. If some of you tried to do that now, there would be a missing person report following you.

And we remember, man, that's how it used to be. I got to rest that way. And we haven't adjusted for the season that we're in. Times change. Seasons change. Your schedule changes.

Some of you start getting married. Some of you start having kids. And the season changes and you've got to change with it. This is especially important for moms. I want to talk to you moms for a second. Sabbath rest for you looks different now and it has been hard to adjust for this season.

In this season, I want to say something very clearly. It is okay for you to put your kids in front of a TV, especially if you have little ones, to put them in front of a TV for a little bit and go and have a quiet time. It's okay for you to buy some time. I don't care what the internet says. You have to take care of yourself. You've got to, you strive to take care of your kids to make sure they're eating well, to make sure they're growing well, to make sure they're learning well.

You've got to take time for yourself. That means, husbands, we've got to step up and give some space for our wives to go and rest. That means that you need to reach out to some friends, some church families, some people in your community group and say, you just come watch the kids for a few hours so that I can go and reorient my heart towards grace so that I can rest well. And if you have older kids, that means you get to tell them from this time to this time on this day, guys, don't come to me. I'm checking out. I love you, serve you, take care of you, cart you everywhere for six days a week.

From this block, you ain't going to see me. I'm going to be in this room. You guys entertain yourself. And if you, I know y'all crush it as moms, you love and serve them, they'll get it. And what they'll see is, is that you are valuing this time and that it's important. And that rest is important.

And that's going to stick in their head as they become adults. Which brings me to my next point. In the season you're in, you need to take time for yourself individually, but we rest together as a family. We need to Sabbath well as families. And that means being creative about your family and what your family does. You know your family better than anyone else.

How could you create rhythms in your family so that y'all can rest individually, but also you can rest together? I heard a pastor once say this. He said, On the Sabbath, for my kids and my wife, which is Sunday for them, we make sure that we go out to a nice restaurant. Nicer than normal. So not Moe's.

Step your game up. Just go a little bit higher. And then you also, he said they order a dessert so that his kids can really look forward to the Sabbath. So they can really look forward to this time. So for some of us, we can incorporate exciting things into our Sabbath as we rest together as families.

It means doing restful activities together. So if that's playing games for you, it's like, guys, we're going to take a few hours together and play games as a family. If that's restful for you, if your goal in a game is not to destroy your family member, destroy your kids and make sure that somebody's crying. If you're not super competitive, you've got to know your family. You've got to know what y'all do. Maybe that's later bedtimes.

It's making this day special because this is the day we also get to rest together as a family. So we need to respond to the season we're in. We need to make some adjustments and rest well for the season that we're in. The fifth one is study for your Sabbath, which kind of seems like an oxymoron. Study for your Sabbath. Stay with me for a second.

Some of us don't know how to rest. Some of us have forgotten how to rest. This is my wife. My wife, we had kids and she's forgotten. In the past year, we have been having conversations. We've been trying to figure this out.

We've been trying, I've been trying to help her. See, let's try this. Maybe this is it because she's changed. And some of you are changing and stuff that you thought was restful five years ago, you're still trying to do and it's not restful anymore. I heard a commentary say once that if you work with your mind, rest with your hands. If you work with your hands, rest with your mind.

And there's some wisdom in that. You have to study yourself. You have to figure out how you rest. I was able to do this as well in thinking through how I rest. It will come up on the screen. There it is.

I started to brainstorm what are some restful activities for me that's super blurry graphic that I couldn't make clear. So I started to think what is restful? I'm a people person. People fuel me. So I started, I like to connect with friends, like to go to coffee shops.

That's something I like to do. I like to do yard work, which I know when you see that, you go, wait a second, you said it wasn't work. Yard work for me is restful. It just is. I don't work with my hands and I get to do yard work and it's cut and dry. Like I go to my stepdad at my mom's house sometimes and I used to mow their acre and a half front lot on a one mile per hour lawnmower.

It took me four hours. As soon as I graduated and went to college, my stepdad got the nicest, fastest, zero turn. Sometimes I go to their house and I'm like, can I mow your lawn? Because it's 45 minutes and I get to turn and cut. It's awesome. I love it.

One day a week when it's not winter time, I get to at my yard, I get to mow the grass, it's overgrown, I get to cut it, it's clean, I get to edge, I get to weed eat. For me, it's enjoyable, it's restful. I can listen to sermons, I can pray, I can do all of that and it's two hours, it's cut and dry. What's not restful for me is house projects. Man, house projects, sometimes they work well. You've heard about my YouTube tragedies, sometimes they don't.

Then I'll watch a YouTube video and I'll go and I'll figure out how to do the project and then I'll go to true value, I pick up a part and then I come back home and then I realize I missed something else, I get back to true value, pick up another part, then I realize I don't have a tool. It's not restful for me. So I just made a decision the past two weeks, like honey, I won't find times for me to do some of these household projects elsewhere but on my Sabbath, I just can't. I can't, it's not restful for me. I've had to go through and think through. Shopping, going to the grocery store, it's not restful for me.

Driving, I drive all the time for my work. It's not restful for me and obviously real estate and ministry and phone usage, it's not good for my soul. We're going to give some space in community groups for you to do this, for you to do this this week. Some of you need to learn and relearn how to rest. You need to figure it out, try some things. Sometimes it won't work.

You might stumble upon some things that actually do work but some of us need to learn how to rest. We need to ask ourselves what is restful, what is fueling, what is good for our soul and what is draining. So we need to study for the Sabbath. Lastly, we need to Sabbath regularly. Sabbath is one day a week. There are also regular rhythms of rest that we need to incorporate throughout our days.

We used to call that a lunch break. That's what used to happen. Some of you still do but a lot of us, it's not a lunch break anymore. You'll go and you'll pick something up and you'll eat really quickly. You'll get back to work. The irony is that a couple weeks ago as we were preparing for sermons on the Sabbath, we had to do a working lunch.

I was like, this screams of irony. Because we work and we work and sometimes we need to take breaks. Sometimes we need to, like I'm a binge worker, I'll go four hours straight and then I'll feel my body start tensing up and I was like, no, I've got to take moments just to breathe. You've got to figure out you and start to incorporate regular rhythms of rest. These are practicals. These are meant to help us as we strive for rest and if we start to make some adjustments, if you start to work some of this out, if you start to figure out how to rest, how to incorporate these rhythms and if you start to see that it is one day a week where we cease from work and we confess with our rest that we are not God, it'll change you.

If we don't do that, if we don't take this seriously, we are heading for burnout. You were not made for limitless work. You will eventually burn out. One of my favorite shows is Better Call Saul. It's about attorneys and it's a spinoff of Breaking Bad and this last season, one of the attorneys, her name is Kim, she went out on her own as an attorney. She picked up a bunch of clients or she picked up one client with a bunch of work and then she's not sleeping well, she's working extra hours, she's staying overnight at the office and then she picks up a second client and she doesn't sleep.

She works and she works and she strives and then she has this really big presentation that she's got to go to. She packs up her car, puts all the boxes of papers of presentations in the back seat and she starts driving and as she's driving, she's rehearsing what she's going to do. She's rehearsing her words, she's going through this presentation, it's the biggest moment of her career and it's shot from her perspective and immediately she crashes. She wakes up, she fell asleep at the wheel and I want to put this picture up, it's a picture of the scene. She steps out of the car and the thing that kept her from going off the cliff is a rock.

She realizes she almost died, her arm is broken, her face is bloodied and all of her work is scattered across the road. And man, that is such a picture of us. If we work and we strive and we struggle and we don't rest, that's a picture of where we're heading. That we are heading for burnout. That we are heading off a cliff and that we're going to end up broken, we're going to end up bruised, we're going to allow in a season of crisis and a season of a nervous breakdown and a season of turmoil for sin to creep in and to take us down. And that picture is so picturesque, all of your work will be scattered.

The irony of this is if you overwork, eventually you will break down and you will have to step away from work like it is scattered across the highway as it is a mess. That's a picture of who we are if we don't learn to rest. And we need to take that seriously. But hear this. When you choose to rest, when you choose to honor the Sabbath, you will experience God in a whole new way. You will start to incorporate these rhythms of rest that will reorient your heart towards grace that will fill you up.

You will have moments of silence that are turned to worship and to joy and you will be refreshed in a way that you never were before. And out of this, once we are regularly refreshed every week, we'll get to serve our family better, our wives better, we'll get to love our kids better, we'll get to serve our co-workers better. as we learn to balance, work, and rest in a God-honoring way as we honor the Sabbath.

Mill City 7/8/18 Mill City 7/8/18

How the Gospel Gives Us Rest

Transcript

Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in the fourth week of our Hammer and Hammock series where we're talking about work and rest. Two things that take up the majority of our time that we're going to either be working or we're going to be not working. And we've got to figure out how to do that well.

We've got to figure out how to have a healthy balance. And so what we did was we started off the first week talking about that God has designed us to have a rhythm of six days of work and one day of rest. So this is actually how God created the world, that he worked, that he began the world by laboring, and then he rested. And if you think about that, for a cosmic being who is beyond time, beyond energy, like he's who can create everything in an instant, to take six days to create everything and then to take a day where he does nothing, is a crazy concept. But God designed it that way and worked that way so that we might follow his pattern.

And he instituted this into the world. And it says that he blessed the seventh day and he made it holy, meaning the seventh day, the Sabbath, is set apart from the rest of the week. And that it's blessed so that those who befriend the Sabbath will be blessed. Those who take part in it will be blessed, will receive the goodness of that day. And so what we're talking about is how do we work for six days and rest for one. And I love the little video we have because we're on different sides of this.

There are some of you who love work. You love being busy. You love the energy. And there's some of you who love rest. And so what we've talked about is that some of you who want to rest four days a week and kind of work three need to change your lifestyle. You need to work six and rest one.

And some of you who are like resting one day a week sounds ridiculous. You're watching the first half of that video and you're like, yes, chopping things, hammering things. Yes. Being a mom, doing yes. And then it goes boop, doop, doop, doop, boop. And then you start seeing people in a hammock and you're like, oh, that sounds so stupid.

I hate the second half of that. And some of you are like, the first half seemed awful. But when that dog started like trotting through the field, that was amazing. And your little spirit wakes up. And so what we're trying to do is figure out how to have a healthy pattern here. There's a first century Stoic philosopher.

His name was Seneca. And he was looking at the Jewish people who practiced the Sabbath, who one day a week did nothing. They had a day of preparation for it where they would get ready to do nothing the next day. And he says that it was absurd. He looked at the Jewish people and said they spend almost a seventh of their life in inactivity. And so as we start today, what we're going to be talking to is the person who kind of agrees with Seneca.

We're talking to the person who is just consistently busy. And I think that there's two types of this person. There's one person who says, look, I get it. The Bible tells us we're supposed to rest. It's in the Ten Commandments. I'm aware that those ten are pretty important.

But you tell me how on earth I'm going to do that. I have like 17 children. I don't think it's actually 17, but it feels like it. I have three jobs. I have you're looking and going. There's no way like I would love to take one day off a week.

That would be amazing. But I'm not going to ride a unicorn to work. And this also isn't going to happen. Like unless that magical thing happens, this magical thing isn't happening. Some of you are just looking and going like, look, sounds great, but there's no way to do that. And on the other side of that, there's someone else who just goes, that doesn't even sound great.

But taking a day, one day a week to do nothing sounds excruciating. And if I'm honest, stupid. And I don't want to. And there's some of you who feel that way. It's just like, no. I mean, I get that it's good and people should rest or whatever.

But like I got a vacation coming up later. Plus, I got some leagues and stuff I'm in. And I just said, I'm not really going to do it. And so we're talking to you today. We spent the past couple of weeks talking to the person who wants to sleep most of their life. And we tried to say, here's why work is important.

Here's why work is valuable. But today we're talking to the person who doesn't ever want to stop or feels like they can't. And we're actually going to spend the next two weeks. So today we're going to talk kind of more big picture, heart level stuff. And next week we're going to talk about all the practical things. So hopefully today you'll leave with a lot of practical questions of like, okay, I'm on board.

But I still need to know how on earth to do that and what to do in a Sabbath. That's next week. So if you get a little annoyed and feel like a lot of your questions aren't answered today, then I did my job because they're not supposed to be. So here's the thing. I read a book called Switch. And what Switch talks about is how to make a change in your life.

And the big kind of example they give is that they say everybody, functions like a person riding on an elephant. That there's an elephant and there's a rider. And the rider is intelligent. The rider understands facts and figures. The rider likes PowerPoints. And the elephant doesn't.

Doesn't care. The elephant is your emotions. It's your heart level desires. And so what the point of the book was is that if you just talk to the rider, but you don't get a hold of the elephant, nothing will change. And we know this to be true. Some of you are like, I'm going to quit smoking.

I know that it's bad. I've seen the little pictures they put on the cartons. I get it. I know that there's a general who became a surgeon. And he has some warnings for me. I get it.

And you're like, I'm going to stop. And the elephant's like, that's cute. Because you're not like the elephant heading in on board with the facts and figures. Some of you are like, this is it. I'm going to start working out. I'm going to start eating right.

I'm going to start tomorrow. And the elephant's laughing at you and then takes you to McDonald's like you. Some of you are like, I'm really, this is the semester when I'm really going to study. I'm going to get ahead on my stuff. I won't show up to class and be like, wait, we have a paper due today. I'm going to already know about it.

I'll have already written it. And your elephant is playing Xbox. It already left the room. It wasn't even paying attention to your PowerPoint. You showed it. And that's what's happening here is that some of us are going, okay, I'm on board with the idea of a Sabbath.

I'm on board with the idea of rest. But we've got to actually untie the soul level, heart level knot. Otherwise, we won't ever actually be able to rest. So I want to talk to all the elephants in the room a little bit today. Grab your Bibles. Go to Hebrews chapter 3.

Here's what I want us to understand as we go to Hebrews chapter 3. It's on page 581 if you have one of the blue Bibles. If you don't own a Bible, take our blue Bible. That's our gift to you. You were not made to endlessly strive. You were not designed by God to endlessly strive.

You were designed by God to do good work, to carry weight, but not ceaselessly. God commands that we rest. And if we don't, all you will have is joyless toil without rest. And eventually, you will burn out. If we don't rest, all you will have is joyless toil. All of life will lose color.

All of life will lose joy and hope and happiness. And all you'll have is just ceaseless toil. And then eventually, you'll die. Or you'll throw off everything in life that holds you down, that weighs on you. And you'll try to escape. You'll derail everything.

So we have to figure out how to do this. And we have to overcome what's stopping us. Let's pray and then we'll look at the text. God, we thank you for this time we get to spend together. And we pray that in these moments for the person who does not know how to rest. Who does not know how to stop.

Who does not know how to sit still. Who does not know how to enjoy moments of quiet and peacefulness. We pray that you would help us to see you in all your glory today. And that the cross might set us free and invite us into rest. In Jesus' name, amen. So in the book of Hebrews, the author, we don't really know who the author is.

Some people think it may be somebody writing some stuff that Paul taught. Some people think that it might be Luke. But we really don't know. In the book of Hebrews, the author is going through and systematically saying, See this? Jesus is better. See angels?

Jesus is better. See Moses? Jesus is better. And he's just consistently saying, Here, let me show you how Jesus is better than this. How Jesus is the fulfillment of this. Let me show you the temple.

Let me show you how Jesus is better than that. And he just consistently does that. And so we're going to pick up in Hebrews 3, verse 14, where he's begun to talk about Moses and the law. And what he said earlier was, Jesus is better than Moses. And that if we're not careful, we'll join with the people who are following Moses and we'll run away from Jesus. So let's pick up in 14.

For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our confidence firm to the end. So he's saying we belong to Christ, we share in Christ, if we keep it, if we keep our confidence, if we keep walking with Christ. As it is written, and he's going to quote from the Old Testament, he says, Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. So now he's going to talk about what that rebellion is. He says, For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?

And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. All right, so here's what he's saying there.

He's saying that Moses led a group of people out of Egypt. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and then God sent Moses to go lead them out of Egypt, to go declare, Let my people go. And the Pharaoh was like, No, I will not let them go. And he's like, Let them go. And they were like, I will not let them go. Let them go.

Like that. And that's what happened. And then God sends plagues. And then the Pharaoh decides to finally let them go. And then when they come to the Red Sea, God parts the Red Sea. And there's all this miraculous stuff that takes place to get the Israelites out of Egypt, the slaves to be set free.

And then God gives them his Ten Commandments. And God declares, I'm going to bring you into a rest. I'm going to bring you into the promised land. I'm going to bless you. And you'll get to be my people. And he institutes the Sabbath at this point.

He says that your value doesn't come from your work. You're no longer slaves. You don't have to endlessly, ceaselessly toil. You're going to work six days. You're going to rest one. So this is what God does.

But then the people rebelled, which is terrifying, by the way, that they could see so clearly who God was and what he had done and that he could rescue them from slavery and they could still reject him. That's what the author of Hebrews is saying. Don't do that. Don't be invited into something so beautiful. Don't see so clearly who God is and then reject that. He says if they did it, we're in danger of doing it.

Because you would look and say, if God sent plagues and if he parted the Red Sea, if these people walked on dry land with two sides of water on the side of them, like I think I would get to the other side and go, you know what? I think God's real and I think he's good. And then they walk around in the wilderness for a little while and they're like, I want something else. And he says, that's terrifying. Don't do that. And so his point is, they, because they did not believe, did not get to enter into the rest that God was offering.

He was inviting them into the promised land. He was inviting them into the rest, but they had unbelief that kept them from the rest he had welcomed them into. Let's keep going. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed entered that rest, as he has said.

As I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. So what he's saying is, those who believe enter into the rest of God, enter into the salvation of God, enter into the promised land of God, and those who disbelieve, who have unbelief, are not welcomed in. That's the major point he's making here. And he's talking about metaphysical rest. Beyond just our physical life, beyond just what we can touch, it's this eternal rest. He's not talking about the Sabbath yet.

What he's saying is that those who believe are welcome into a rest that is offered by God through salvation. And those who have unbelief do not get the rest. Do not get the eternal rest offered by God. Then he says, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way. And God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, in this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest.

Here's what we need to understand. He says, those who believe get to enter the rest, just like God worked and rested. And those who have unbelief do not get to enter the rest. And this is mirrored. It is pictured in our lives so that if you have an inability to rest, I want to argue with you today that that means you have a practical, functional unbelief in the gospel at work in your life. That if you're a Christian, but you can't sit still, if you're a Christian, but you can't stop, if you're a Christian, but you can't rest, I want to argue with you that you have a functional unbelief.

That you might say, no, I really believe in Christ. I really know who he is. I really, but the problem is those who know Christ are marked their entire life. Even their work is marked by a rest because we're not having to strive to prove ourselves. That we're welcomed into a rest that only comes through salvation. That we're actually, if we're unable to rest, we're looking to something else to satisfy us, to assure us that we're okay. to give us our value, to give us our worth, that we have unbelief.

That God has invited us to rest from our works, to rest from our labor. And we are, like them in the rebellion, hardening our hearts and saying, I want something else. I need something else to validate me. I need something else to give me my worth. I need something else. So I can't stop.

I can't rest. I can't do nothing. I can't have inactivity because I need it to tell me I'm okay. And that is a practical unbelief. I want to read a quote by Judith Shulovich. She was writing for a New York Times.

She, she's a New York Times author. She is, grew up Jewish and then she kind of, as she got older, she just rejected her practicing Jewish faith. And then she realized that she started really, really struggling and about every weekend around Friday night, she said she just got depressed. And the point of the article is she realized that she needed the Sabbath. That she had practiced it religiously growing up and that it was very aggressively enforced and that she just kind of rejected all of that. But then she was striving endlessly and exhausted.

And so every Friday night she would get depressed and she realized I need to rest. And that's the point of her article. Now she's writing from the standpoint of a Jewish person, but I think that she gives some very clear pictures of what it feels like and what it's like for us to not be able to rest. She refers to our neurotic drive to achieve. That there's something wrong with us, but we have to constantly have something that we're marking off, that we're checking off, that we're achieving, that we're adding to our list of who we are. She says, I love this quote, she says, oddly, one of the few times a parent can truly, not that quote, I'm reading a different one.

I'm going to get to that one in a second. Oddly, one of the few times a parent can truly relax is when lingering on the sidelines of a child's baseball or soccer game. There's nothing like being forced to be somewhere and do very little for an hour and a half to declench the muscles of the mind. I love that phrase, declench the muscles of the mind. So what she's saying is that there has to be this time that we rest and she keeps going and I like this quote as well that uses bigger words so it's going to be up here.

So when she's talking about the Sabbath, she's talking about this time where we specifically stop to take a long period of rest. Not just a little bit of time, not just time that's forced on us, but it's actually we force it into our schedule. She says this, not only did drudgery give way to festivity and family gatherings and occasionally worship, but the machinery of self-censorship shut down too, stilling the eternal inner murmur of self-reproach. She says, this is the purpose of the Sabbath. I think her argument is helpful, the words that she uses here, that there's this self-censorship, there's this eternal inner murmur that by forcing ourselves to stop, we're forced to face and this is why some of us loathe having nothing to do.

Because what happens is when everything ceases, when our activity ceases, when we no longer have something that we're being productive, it's as if a maestro walks to the stand in our mind and just starts making all of this stuff, starts singing and crying, yelling at us. Like some of you, you go to rest, you go to sit down, you're like, finally, I'm going to take a nap and you lay down and it's this immediate, you really should be doing something else. You're being kind of lazy right now. There are other things that you could do that are more important with your time that you actually could, maybe you should actually get some of this work done you've been saying you were going to do so that you can spend some time with your children later.

Maybe like immediately like lists and tasks and so I don't know how long you can stand it, five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes and then you're up. You got stuff to do. Maybe some of you lay down and finally you're exhausted and you're like, I'm going to go to sleep and you lay down in bed at night and your brain's like, hey, you want to replay everything that happened today and judge yourself? And you're like, no. And your brain's like, it's going to be fun. And you reevaluate your entire day and you start trying to figure out how you're going to do better the next day.

That you have this inability to stop. You have something to prove, something to earn. You've got an inner murmur, this self-censorship, this self-correction that is constant. Maybe some of you, your brain's consistently telling you, rest is for weak people and you're not weak. Rest is for the unimportant, but you're important. That there's something about you getting called in on your day off, there's something about you having to do work on your day off that confirms for you in your soul that I matter and I'm valuable and I have worth.

Other people can take time off, I can't, and that means that I'm worth something. That I'm accomplishing something. That I'm doing something. You work through lunch and it's a badge of honor because of how important you are and how much you matter. For some of you, you've brought this into your relationship with Jesus. So the stuff that the Bible talks about, about walking with Jesus where Jesus says things like, come to me all you who are weary and I'll give you rest, doesn't feel like your relationship to Jesus.

You don't feel like a weary person who got to go rest with Jesus. You don't feel like someone who's drinking deeply from a cool well or an unending river. You actually feel like someone who's accomplishing a lot of tasks and presenting Jesus with your checklist of all the good things you've done. So that your Bible reading has become, I'm going to read this much, I'm going to memorize this much, I'm going to do this much and it's become this, I'm going to labor for you Jesus and then I'll present to you what I have accomplished. And so even in walking with Jesus, you've brought in this idea of I have to be active and I have to be purposeful and I have to display to you what I've done.

And it's not restful and it's not joyous. Some of you feel like anytime you rest you've just pushed off the important things. If I rest now, I'm just going to have more to do later. If I stop now, I'll just complicate all next week. There's no way I could take an entire day off because it's just going to ruin everything and so that you consistently just never take time off. You never really stop.

You kind of rest and you kind of, I know some of you are like, well it's kind of rest but I also like it'll be more restful if I just get all the laundry done and then I'll really feel good if I can just get the grass cut and that'll be restful. And one of the ways that I'm going to rest this week is I'm going to invite five people over to my house and that'll be restful even though you hate people and you're just going to bring them over because you're kind of supposed to and then you'll feel better about yourself if you can and you've added in all this activity when you were designed for some inactivity so that you might actually have to face the maestro. You might actually have to take the time it takes to steal the inner murmur. That we were designed to stop so that we might come face to face with some things that God actually wants us to face.

This is why I think one of the helpful things that Adam Gibson who from Midtown came and spoke to us the other day, two weeks ago, said that there's a difference between rest and entertainment. There's a difference between rest and just kind of numbing our minds with watching television and that sort of thing. that some of that is us turning up the television so that we can drown out the course of the inner murmur but rather than actually facing it, unclenching it, walking in it and figuring out how to have true rest in Christ. I was talking with Nadine Pabone. She's one of our group leaders and she serves a lot in our church in a couple different areas and we were talking about this and just how busy she is and she said one of the reasons she doesn't like resting, she doesn't like taking time off is that she became a mom when she was 17 and that she actually doesn't know who she is apart from being a mom, being a wife and doing ministry and that when she rests she comes face to face with the fact that she has placed her identity in her activity so that if you looked at her and said, hey, take the day off, go do something you enjoy, her response is, I actually don't really know what I enjoy.

I watch a lot of children's programs. I fold a lot of laundry. I've got four children but I don't really know what I like. I don't really know what refreshes me and what she realizes when she comes to those moments of your whole day is cleared and you can rest, she comes to the face to face with the fact that I don't really know who I am outside of the things that I do and for some of you, you've placed all of your identity in work, you've placed all of your identity in your activities, you've placed all of your identity in who you are and what you do so that when you have a day off, you come face to face with the fact that you actually don't know who you are and it's excruciating.

So your inability to stop tells on you. Your inability to pause your life declares to you, it snitches. Your inability to stop tells on you that you actually have an internal issue with knowing who you are and being able to rest in the salvation that's offered in Christ. That you have an inability to stop because you have an inability to rest in the fact that Jesus has done all the work on your behalf and you still have something to prove and you still have something to achieve and you still have something you need to assure you that you have value. So how do we fight this?

That's offered in Christ. That you have an inability to stop because you have an inability to rest in the fact that Jesus has done all the work on your behalf and you still have something to prove and you still have something to achieve and you still have something you need to assure you that you have value. So how do we fight this? How do we silence the inner murmur? How do we learn

How to rest? How do we learn how to quiet ourselves so that we might be able to enjoy what Christ has offered? verse 8 I love this verse for if Joshua had given them rest God would not have spoken of another day later on so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his now again

This is beyond our weekly rest this is beyond the regular Sabbath but he talks about this Sabbath rest and what he says is if Joshua had given them rest then God wouldn't have kept talking about this idea now we got to understand who Joshua is for this to be really encouraging because if you don't know who Joshua is you're just like neat Joshua he failed I don't know him but he dropped the ball here's who Joshua

Is Joshua is the person who took over after Moses died and Joshua actually led the people into the promised land so he delivers them into God's promised land and he begins to set up them following the Lord and practicing the laws and so here's what it just said the promised land and obedience to the law will not provide for you rest and some of you have convinced yourself it will some of you have said if I can just achieve enough if I can just work hard enough if I can finally

I'll just finally feel okay I'll finally reach this moment where I'll tell myself I've done enough you've convinced yourself that if you're good enough if you behave well enough then finally your soul will be at rest and it won't and some of you have said if I can just get to the promised land and I don't know what your promised land is certain amount of money certain Job title kids out of your house I don't know what you think the promised land is but you keep telling yourself if I can just get there if I can just get there

If I can just get there I'll get rest and let me tell you something Joshua fails every time but there is a Sabbath rest for the people of God and it is found in Christ that we actually get to cease our striving our endless desire to prove our value our worth to assure ourselves that we're okay because of Christ I want to read from Galatians chapter 2 verse 16 and verse 21 he says yet we know that a person is not justified that means made right

That means that you won't ever actually be able to stand and say I'm perfect I've done it I've achieved it I can rest he says you're not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ so we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because by works of the law no one will be justified to use the language of Hebrews by works of the law no one will find rest 21

I do not nullify the grace of God for if righteousness were through the law then Christ Jesus died for no purpose so here's what he's saying in Galatians he's saying that if we consistently have to work to prove that our value comes from our work that we're going to present to God something amazing that he'll finally accept us that what we're doing is we're looking at the cross and saying no thank you we're hardening our hearts towards it we're nullifying the grace of God

And we're rejecting the offer of free salvation to actually lay down our work so here's what I want to say if you're in Christ and your faith is in Christ you've been given rest that is beyond any rest the world can ever offer and therefore you actually can rest here you've been given an eternal rest and therefore are free to rest here because you have nothing to prove

And you have nothing to earn it's all been carried out in Christ and if we're unable to rest here I believe it tells on us that we actually don't believe that we've been assured what we've been assured and given what we've been given in Christ you see our actions show what we believe that through as Christians we show what we believe

When we face adversity we show the hope that we have when we face loss we show what we believe by the way we spend our money we show what we believe by how we rest every week that you ought to be able to shut everything down and be fine and here's the thing that you need to know if you're in Christ you have value you have worth you have been given everything you need verse 11

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience so what he's saying is let us work really hard to believe this truth to find Christ and so here's what I want you to understand in order for you to Sabbath in order for you to rest in order for you to enjoy this you actually have

To put in effort some of you say I don't know how on earth I'm going to take an entire day off and the truth is the way your schedule is set up right now you're not that's why there was a day of preparation for the Jewish people you actually have a lot of work to do the day before you

Rest but then you actually get to shut everything down to declench your mind to silence the inner murmur and rest so let me let me tell you this it's the gospel that allows you to actually rest and it's actually resting that helps you believe the gospel that you're actually going to have to fit this into your

Schedule so that you can come face to face with the maestro and Jesus can stand up risen from the grave and tell them all to shut it and sit down that Jesus is able to do that but we actually have to come face to face with all of the inner murmur and we have to take the time it takes to sit and listen and face it

And hear it so that we might actually begin to silence it we have to work to rest and you can't rest as long as your activity saves you as long as your movement and work and effort validates your existence so it's rest that helps us believe this it's actually practicing this rest that proves to us

That this is true and gives us the time to rest in Christ and the salvation that he offers there's a movie called Chariots of Fire it came out in late when did it come out in the 70s it's about two guys in England that both run track one's name's Eric one's name's Harold one of them is Jewish and one of them is a Christian they're both very fast

They're going to get to go to the Olympics it's based off of a true story some of you haven't seen this movie but you've heard the song boom boom boom boom ka ka ka ka ka ka ka ka bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum and I don't care what it's put to the back of you get excited it's like ba da da da da da da da da da and you're like I can accomplish anything I ever wanted to

That's that song okay I think some of y'all should put that as your ringtone that wakes you up in the morning or whatever you just hear boom boom boom ka ka ka ka you just pop out of bed so anyway it's about these guys that are in the Olympics and they find out on the way to the Olympics that one of the events is going to be on a Sunday and so Eric who is a world class runner and this is his event

Says I don't do things on Sundays that's my Sabbath that's the Sabbath and I'm taking it off and so the whole movie is about this guy who could go win a gold medal and like the kings and the people over at Britain are coming to him and saying you should do this and he actually looks at him at one point and says I know y'all are in charge of this country but I have a bigger king who's in charge of everything and he raises kingdoms and he lowers kingdoms

And I'm going to do what he says and even if you don't believe you're just like that was amazing I'd love to say that to a king and he doesn't run now Harold has run his entire life facing anti-Semitism that people just dislike Jewish people and he's run running has actually allowed him to enter into society running has actually allowed him to have people value him running has been his thing that he's used to show that he has value that he has worth

There's this line in the movie where he actually says when that gun goes off I have 10 seconds to prove my existence I've got 10 seconds to prove my existence I've got 10 seconds to show that I have value now Eric doesn't run not because he's trapped not because he's hemmed in by God's rules he doesn't run because he's free he doesn't have to prove that he has worth he's been given worth in Christ he's free to run

Or not run one of the lines that he has in the movie is he says that God's made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure see running for him was just a way to worship God to honor God to enjoy God and if it came down to it he could rest or not rest run or not run because he he was free and for some of us our work is us saying I've got 40 hours I've got 50 hours

I've got 60 hours to prove my worth I've got this project to earn my right to exist I've got these children that'll prove that I should have been here and you're free because Christ has given you his worth he's given you his value it's sealed in the cross and the empty tomb and you are free it is unassailable it will not be taken from you that when he says come to me

You who are weary and I'll give you rest it's a promise for eternity and it's practiced now that we get to cease our labors we get to rest and we get to practice practically reminding ourselves that I have my value in Christ and I can spend a seventh of my life in inactivity and unproductiveness and walk in front of the king and be saved by his work that's why God

Takes slaves out of Egypt and says you will practice the Sabbath this is how your week works now because slaves only have value as far as they're able to work they only have value in their productivity and he's looked at us and declared in Christ you are not slaves your value does not come from you or what you have done it comes from Christ and you are free to feel his pleasure in your work and to stop

And accomplish nothing and know that he ceased from his labors that he rose from the grave that he left the cross that your fate is sealed and you have freedom and value and hope in him so the Sabbath the taking a day off every week helps us untie that knot it helps us actively practice and remind ourselves of that truth and it's that truth that allows us

To consistently take that time to rest Matt's going to come back up we're going to sing so we're going to practice the Sabbath to rebel against the notion that our value comes from our labor that our identity comes from our activity that we're going to rebel against that idea that we're going to practice rest because we know that in Christ our value has been carried out our identity has been sealed and we're going to do this so that we might remember who Jesus is and what he's done

Because our work and our activity is cluttering our view of him and it's lying to us in our inability to rest our work has lied to us and told us that we need it in order to be okay and all we need is Christ the way we're going to end today is we're going to sing a song here in a minute but we're going to take communion before we do that communion is a practice that has been given to the church it was instituted the night before Jesus went to the cross where he took bread and he broke it and he said this is my body broken for you

And he took a cup and he shared it with his disciples and he says this is the new covenant of my blood poured out for you and as we go from here learning how to practice the Sabbath and learning how to rest so that we might have Jesus silence the inner murmur of self-censorship and self-reproach before we do that we're going to practice communion which is a reminder of why we get to rest that Jesus Christ went to a cross that he did the work for us that our value is carried out in him and that he has accomplished for us all that we need for salvation

And for rest that there's a better rest that Joshua couldn't give us that hard work couldn't give us that the promised land wouldn't give us but that Christ did so in a moment I encourage you to take some time to pray to reflect to repent where you need to and if you're a Christian we invite you to take communion if you're not a Christian this is something given to the church so you're welcome to to stay seated and then in a moment stand and sing with us let's pray God I pray that everyone here would know true rest

That's found only in surrender to you that's found only in faith in Christ and then I pray that that would practically be carried out as we become some hard working well resting people I pray that we would be able to cease from our labors and have inactivity so that we might come face to face with you and watch you silence the chorus of accusation of doubt the burden of proving our value we love you

And we praise you in Jesus name Amen

Mill City 7/1/18 Mill City 7/1/18

All Good Work is God's Work

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. We're going to be in Genesis 1 today, which is in page 1 of your Bible, so you can go ahead and flip there. We're going to work through that. We'll get to that in a moment.

Recently, my wife and I, we got to go on vacation. A couple weeks ago, we had to go to the beach. Going to the beach and getting on the beach used to be this relaxing experience. You'd take a book. You'd see the ocean. You'd just take it all in.

It was not that, and it will not be that for a very long time for us. We have a daughter who turns three tomorrow. We have a son that turns one in a few weeks. Getting out on the beach first was getting an umbrella in the ground. That took a total of about two hours because at one point, wind carried it. It almost impaled a lady.

We had to get that in the ground. I'm kind of putting a foot on that, trying to put dirt, sand on that. Then my wife brought this blow-up pool that theoretically our children would have played in once it got blown up. We did not bring a pump, so I had to do it all by the power of my lungs, which don't have maximum capacity at all. It took about 45 minutes to watch them plan it for three. So a different experience at the beach, not as much relaxing, but I did get to do one fun activity that I've been wanting to do with my daughter.

Growing up, my brother and I used to go to the beach, and we used to play. As the tide was coming in, we used to build these sand forts. The whole goal was you'd build this massive sand fort. You'd build a moat. You'd get it going. So when the waves came in, it was just kind of a challenge.

How long can we go up against the ocean until the ocean winds? It was just fun. I was like, all right, I'm going to get to do this with Ellie, my daughter. So I get her out there, and we start building this fort and start digging it out. She's kind of getting into it, and we start kind of building the fort and kind of got the moat going and getting everything ready. Then I was like, well, you want to decorate it, which we didn't do when we were growing up because we were two boys.

But she started to get more into it. She started picking out shells and kind of placing them in on there. If I had like a big bucket of pink paint and just throw it on there, she would have been overjoyed. And we kept going, and as this is happening, I'm like, Ellie, look, the waves are coming. So we've got to get this strong because when the waves get here, it's going to be a challenge.

And finally the first wave came in, and it came up, and it kind of took some of the sand away. And she saw it, and I was like, see? And then she really started to get into the ocean. Like she was adamant about facing off against the ocean. And she kind of forgot about the fort and started going. She would run up to the waves and go, no.

And she'd be screaming at him. And she says gibberish sometimes. And she's just like, no, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then she started like kicking the water. And I was like, okay, you're getting really into this. I didn't really see this coming.

And she had gotten so lost in going up against the ocean that she at one point goes to the fort. She grabs a hunk of the fort in sand and starts pelting the ocean. And I was like, whoa, kid, like that. We won't be here five more minutes if you keep this up. She got so lost in the activity, so lost in what was happening. She lost sight of the purpose of what we were actually there to do.

And I feel like work, that happens in how we approach work. And that's why we spent this period of time, six weeks going through the hammer and the hammock, going through work and rest that we might have a better theology, a better understanding of what work and rest are supposed to be. And today we're going to focus on what the purpose of work is. Because I feel like when we're getting pummeled by waves, when we're getting owned by the different problems at work, challenges at work, different things that we face, that oftentimes I feel like we lose the purpose of what work is supposed to be. So what work very clearly is in the Bible is this.

It is a good gift that God has given us that we might glorify Him. That is what the Scriptures teach. That is a good gift that God has given us that we might glorify and worship Him. And oftentimes I feel like if we're honest, we don't really functionally believe that. I don't think we actually functionally believe that. I think that there are three main views of work that we fall into that are fallen, that are corrupted by sin.

I think the first view of work that many of us have in our culture is that many of us view work as a mere necessity. It's just necessary. It's a necessary means. You might hear common phrasing with this that says, I don't live to work. I work to live. And the mindset is that work is just an exchange.

I exchange my time. It's a commodity. I exchange my time, my effort, and you give me a paycheck. And that's how I pay to live. So that's one common aspect we'll get to in a little bit that has fallen, that does not capture what work is supposed to be.

The second is that work is an enemy. And this is a little bit what Adam from Midtown, when he came and preached last week, which if you were not here, I encourage you, please go back and listen to it. It was a very helpful, a ton of wisdom as he preached through Proverbs on laziness, on the sluggard. And many people fall into this view that work is an enemy. It is an enemy of my recreation, of my fun, of my joy. It impedes on my life, and I will do whatever it takes not to work.

And the third kind of fallen way I see in culture is that work becomes an idol. It becomes something that we worship, whether it's the success it brings, the productivity it brings, whatever. We place that in the place of God, and we give it our affection, our devotion, all of our thoughts, till we elevate it to the point of worship. So we'll get to those three fallen perspectives in a little bit. But we have to reclaim what work actually is, that it is a good gift that God has given us that we might glorify him.

And in order to do that, we're going to be in Genesis 1, verses 27 through 31. And as we work through this, we're going to see a few things. We're going to see that we are made in the image of a worker God. We're going to see the calling to work, which is a call to subdue and bring dominion. And then as we work through that, as we establish what the purpose of work is supposed to be, then we will be able to tackle those three fallen worldviews. So I'm going to read from Genesis 1, verses 27.

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And hear this, subdue it and have dominion.

Over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, Behold, I've given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth. And every tree with seed and its fruit, you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth and everything that has the breath of life, I've given you every green plant for food. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made.

And behold, it was very good. I'll pray and then we'll dive in. God, thank you so much that you have given us a picture of what work is supposed to be. I pray that you would help us be present this morning. That you would help us listen to your word. That you would speak powerfully to us.

And you would reshape our understanding that we might have a better perspective on what work is supposed to be. Amen. Alright, so it's important to note this very last part of this verse. That he said it was very good. That's important because of where we are in the story. This is before the fall.

This is before in chapter 3 when Adam and Eve sin against God bringing sin in the world. This is a picture of what work was in its original design uncorrupted by sin. So in order to understand work, that's why we're in Genesis 1. We're getting back to the original design of what it's supposed to be. In the same way, I feel like we need to reclaim the original design of what macaroni and cheese is supposed to be. I feel like we've lost it.

I would say that we originated what mac and cheese in its purest form was supposed to be. We made it. And then the rest of culture saw it and said, oh, let's give our spin on it. And people started putting vegetables in it. Y'all, I put one time my fork into what I thought might be mac and cheese. And it came out and I found out it was cauliflower and cheese.

And I was like, that's an abomination. That's not what mac and cheese is supposed to be. We need to, as a culture, reclaim that. Get back to the original design for our own good. And that's what we're doing with work. We're getting back to the original design.

It starts off in verse 27 when it says that, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. Now, I don't have a ton of space to get into. This is one of the biggest doctrines we have in the Bible, being made in the image of God. We are going to spend a good long while in the book of Genesis coming up starting in August.

So we'll spend a whole week working on the image of God. But the overview is this, that we are made in the image of God, which means we bear his likeness, his creativity, we have value, that we are made different from any other aspect of creation. We look like him. And in this context, it means that we are made in the image of a worker God. A God who created everything out of nothing. Who made all of the raw material that we have.

Who made metals. Who made water. Who made coffee beans and agriculture. He made everything. And we are made in the image of that God. A God who made everything out of nothing and who brings order to chaos.

So we're made in the image of him. And then it continues. It says in verse 28, and God blessed them. And he said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea. And then he keeps going with a long description.

The birds of the heavens. Every living creature. Every plant that yields seed. Every fruit. All the beasts of the field. All of it.

That we've been given dominion and called to subdue that. Now before that he says, be fruitful and multiply. Which we don't have time to get that this week either. But that is make babies. That is form families. That is making societies.

And we'll get to that when we tackle Genesis. And then he gets to these two unique commands that we have attached to work. To subdue it and have dominion over it. Now he's talking about all of creation. And he could have just said everything. That's what I think is unique here.

He could have just said, subdue it and have dominion over everything. And that's it. But he doesn't. He says, he gives this long description of everything that humanity has been given. And I think that's helpful for us. I think it's helpful for that to be longer.

So that we might understand the responsibility of what we've been given. That Adam and Eve in the garden were given all of this. And I'll have to wonder how they would have reacted to that. And looking at everything that God had given them. That they're looking at things like a tree that has these beautiful fruits on it. That's not quite orange.

It's not quite yellow. It's peach. And then we get to cultivate peaches. That are so good that we get a harvest of right now in this season. They would have peaches. And they would have dominion.

They would be able to subdue bears. That we have dominion over the wildest creatures. That we have responsibility over waterfalls. And rivers. And dogs. And even cats.

Which I know in theory are good because of what the Bible says. But that's debatable. If you're a cat person, I'm sorry. Kind of. We get dominion over all of that. And the picture is that God gave the keys to the kingdom.

He gave the keys to the business empire to his kids. And he said, run with it. This is your responsibility now. Subdue it. And have dominion over it. Now, subdue is an interesting word choice here.

It's actually a little bit of a violent word. In the Hebrew and the Aramaic. Which are similar words that is being used here. The idea is conveyed as beating down a wild growth into a path. Or in other ways, it's being used as subduing. Bringing into submission someone or something that is wild or chaotic.

He could have just said, take care of everything. But he intentionally uses the word subdue for a reason. Because the earth, in its original form, its essence is wild. It is need. It is chaotic. It's a need to be subdued.

And that's... My common perspective of this before walking through this was that the world was... When God brought order to chaos, he did almost all of the work. But the picture is, is he did most of the work. The rest he has given to us. And I've applied that.

I've started to think through, okay, that makes sense. I have two dogs. I have one that is bigger. She's a puppy. She's going to be a great dog. And I have another dog that's been with us for a long time.

I know I've talked about him before. He's just not a great dog. He has bitten me countless times. He's bitten my wife. He has attempted to bite our children. He's just not a good dog.

And for the longest time, I've thought, it's because of the fall. It's because this dog is uniquely affected by sin. And he's jacked up. Which is true. But it's also, he has a wild streak in him that goes all the way back to creation.

And I have done, at times, a poor Job of subduing him. So I get to share in the blame a little bit when it comes to him. We're called to subdue what is wild. And we're called to bring dominion to what is chaos. The word dominion is another interesting word that is used here. It is commonly used in the context of kings or in ruling.

And that kings would come in. They'd bring in their dominion, their rule, their order. And we hear that commonly now when it comes to presidential cycles. That every, well, it used to be every four years. Now it just never ends.

It's always campaigning. One side saying, we're going to come in and do it better. You see how they're messing it up? We're going to come in and bring our order to the chaos. And the other side, when they're not in power, says, no, we're going to bring our order. They're doing it wrong.

Dominion, the word that is being used here, is a word of power. And God has given us power that we might bring order to what is chaotic, to what is wild. And with all of creation, we get to share because each of us, hear this, each of us are made in the image of God. And each of us has a share of dominion. Each of us has a calling to bring order to society, order to this world. Which means that every single person in this room and in this world shares in this.

That your job, your work, it matters. Your job matters. I can make a case for 99.9% of jobs and how each of them are good and each of them matter. Let me go through a couple that will catch a wide range of our church family. If you work on air conditioning units, if you work on HVAC units, you matter. Like I've felt that so clearly this week.

This week, our HVAC unit went out and we didn't have air conditioning for a day. So my parents were generous enough to take us in for a night. And I slept in a room with our son who knew we were in the room and decided that he wanted to basically keep us up all night because of that. So I got very little sleep and had a 14-hour work day the next day. And I was exhausted. And my wife also felt the burden of that.

Having the kids and having to keep them out of the house and having to keep them entertained away from it all. And then finally, a man came. A knight in shining armor came into our house and went to the magical machine that takes 100-degree oppressive Columbia heat and magically changes it into 70-degree bliss. And we were so thankful because our whole work week, our whole everything could function now. We could be home. That job and so many other blue-collar jobs matter because it brings order to what is chaotic and to what is broken.

If you work in the service industry, whether you serve coffee or you bartend or you are a chef, like you bring creativity, you take raw materials and order them in a way. I can go to a coffee shop where someone has obsessed so much over coffee. I'm so thankful for hipsters because of all the investment they've done in that industry. And we get to be the benefits of it. I can go to a pub and I can order a drink that someone has intentionally thought about. I can go to a restaurant where someone has spent so much training and time and energy and has made this great dish that we can eat and enjoy because that is helpful for us.

That gives us joy in the things that God has created. You bring order. You bring value. If you are an accountant and you work with Numbers, your job matters. Man, this week I was in a meeting with a couple of other pastors, Matt Chet and Razz and were talking and they pulled out this graph with statistics and probability and Numbers. And they started explaining and I think they finally saw me at one point and they saw the confused look at my face.

And they finally started to explain it. And I was like, I think I understood half of what they were saying. But in the inside I was dying because I hate Numbers. I'm so bad at them. I made a D in college trigonometry. And I was a pretty decent student.

I was okay. And I said, you know what, D's equal degrees. I'm out because I never want to see math again. But if you're gifted in that and God has given you that, you work with Numbers and you make it, you order the world and our finances. You bring value to what is chaotic. I could keep going on and on.

If you work at a call center and do customer service, you deal with difficult people, you help us solve problems, you matter. If you are a mom or just a parent in general, if you're a parent that works a job away and then comes home and clocks in, you and your work matters because children are forces of chaos and destruction. They just are. Every night my wife and I, we clean up the downstairs. And I didn't used to care about having a clean living area. But now I do because she's installed that in me.

And we go to bed and we come back and we bring our children down. And they start to eat breakfast and they smear all kinds of food everywhere. Then they go in and they don't pull out one toy. They pull out all the toys and they spread them around. And my daughter, she does crafts and makes messes and all over the place. And we get to, as parents, help order that.

We get to, as parents, help bring discipline. Have you ever met an adult who was never told no as a kid? Who did not receive any form of discipline? They're the worst. They're adult babies. You get to help bring value to society because you are a parent and you do the hard work at bringing order to what is chaos in families.

I could go through a ton of different jobs. Unless you're selling your body as a prostitute or you're writing blogs to help other parents feel bad about the way that they parent. Unless you're not doing something that's inherently evil and wrong. Like you bring value and order. Because the world is an uncultivated garden and you get to own your share in cultivating it. You get to share in bringing order to it.

Because here's the deal. If you don't do that. If you don't carry the weight that you're supposed to. Somebody else will. Somebody else has to help pay your bills. Somebody else has to help pick up a shovel.

And I know there's I'm not talking about extenuating circumstances when you're temporarily unemployed when you're going through disability. I'm not I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the general call to pick up a shovel and to use what God has gifted you with to help carry weight. It affects other people when you don't do that. And it affects you. Because you were designed to carry weight.

And I get it man. Work is difficult sometimes. And I really I used to think it was difficult because of the fall. Like I love productivity and getting stuff done. I love efficiency. I love writing a sermon that lands.

I love I do real estate. So I love doing deals that actually get done. I love having a finished day work. I think all of us value that. And I think oftentimes when that happens at least from my perspective it has been well thorns and thistles. Because work has been corrupted.

And that's partly true. That comes from Genesis 3. When the curse is handed down we see how it affects work. In Genesis 3 it says cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.

And you shall eat of the plants of the field. Meaning that you sometimes you will cultivate a garden. You will work hard and it will be fruitless. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. So yes work has been cursed.

And it is sometimes fruitless. But it's also difficult. And it's difficult because that's how it was originally designed to be. That sometimes as a real estate agent I will spend months and months and months on a deal to watch it just vanish into thin air. It's just gone. That sometimes I can put 30 plus hours into writing a sermon and preparing it to make sure because we care about the word of God and it being taught accurately and helpfully in our church.

That I can rock up here. I can let it rip. I can walk off the stage. And I can be like man I thought that I think that felt pretty good. And I go and talk to my wife and she goes well it was okay. And I'm like really?

And it's like man my often perspective has been well because thorns and thistles. And that's not actually the full picture. That as I've worked more through this I've actually started to see this goes all the way back to the garden. That work was meant to be difficult. It's a part of the fabric of creation. Because the earth is chaotic and because we're called to subdue it sometimes that's going to take longer.

Sometimes that's going to be difficult. It's almost as if we have an infinite God who could have in Genesis 1 could have been he created the world. Boom everything existed. That's what it could have been. But God chose over a six day work week to slowly form everything out of nothing.

It's almost as if God is trying to teach us something. That if the infinite God of power of all of the universe took a six day period to actually make everything out of nothing. That maybe work is sometimes meant to be slow. That maybe sometimes work is meant to be difficult. Because in the slowness and the difficulty you get to grow into Christ likeness. You get to grow into the character of God.

That the work of subduing is sometimes slow and difficult and long term. But ultimately it points us to what the end of work is supposed to be. That the end of work, the purpose of work is not productivity. It's not results. It's God. That is the end result of our work.

That it's growing in the character of God. That as we work slowly and through the difficulty and through the challenges of work. God would grow us in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. All of his fruit. All of his character would be forming us and shaping us through the slow and sometimes difficult, sometimes repetitive work. That's why I love Adam when he came last week and preached.

He said, We become the people we are by what we choose to do again. I love that. That through the repetitive, through the monotonous, through the slow work. We are being formed and shaped. That there's a vertical change that happens. That we are growing into Christ likeness.

That we are being shaped by him. But there's also a horizontal effect where we affect other people. Not just with what we make and what we bring order to. But by the character that we show in our work. That we might model the gospel to those we work with. That they would see the very character of God in how we work.

And when we start to understand that. We start to understand that good work is actually a gift that God has given us that we might glorify him. Once we've owned that. Then we can start to fully understand how we can repent of the fallenness that we fall into. And those three perspectives I mentioned earlier. So my first question is are you prone to seeing work simply as necessary?

Is that you? Do you just see it as a necessary exchange? That you put in the work. That you put in the time. And you put that in to get a paycheck. And that's all it is.

It is a transferal of goods. Now sometimes that is an explicitly fallen mindset. That all of your decisions. That all of your decisions in work. And how you're going to move. And how you're going to advance.

Is always based on money. I want to maximize the amount of money I can get. Because I want to maximize the stuff I can buy. That some of us have fallen for the American dream. And we want to have it all. And that's all that work becomes.

It becomes a necessary means to that end. And we've talked about as a church family. That that is a fallen mindset. That we don't need to fall for that kind of materialism. But sometimes this is a little more subtle.

And sometimes this actually looks a little more holy on its face. Now I've heard some people that say. You know I work. And I work this job. And I want to earn more. So that I can give more to the church.

So that I can give more to the mission. Because I want to see God advance the kingdom. And I hear that attached sometimes to. Man you know what. You're doing the real work in ministry. I just do.

I do this nine to five. It's not. We don't talk about that. You actually. Your job actually matters. I want to help invest in that.

And there's so much. So much good in that. I love hearing people that have been. That have been transformed by generosity. That understand. The generosity that God calls it to.

And I want to uphold that as good. But what's underneath all of that. Is that what I do doesn't matter. It's just necessary. I put my time in. I get my paycheck.

And I can be generous. And when you have that mindset. You are missing out on what work can be. That is a good transformative gift. That can grow you. And shape you.

That you can have a profound effect. On the people that you work alongside of. On your employees. On the people that you get to model the gospel to. So we need to grab hold of that.

That work is not just necessary. It is a good gift that God has given us. The second mindset we need to repent of. Is if you have the mindset that says that work is simply an enemy. Is that you? Is work an enemy of joy?

Is it an enemy of your recreation? Is it an enemy of what you could be doing? Like do you put the minimal amount of effort in. In your job? Like I can do just enough. I am going to count down the clock.

Until I can clock out. And then I will be on. And be able to do what I actually want to do. Here is the deal. Hard work is valuable. And it is powerful.

Because it can actually grow character in you. But man. A lack of hard work will reveal a lack of character in you. That needs to be formed. That needs to be shaped. So is that your perspective?

Do you avoid as many jobs when you get called to do the extra stuff at work? Do you avoid that? Because I don't want to deal with that. Do you avoid work at home? Like if you have a family that you go home to. Do you avoid the different work that you could be carrying weight in.

Because you have better things to do. That applies to the church too. Do you have the mindset? Nah. I know I am being asked to serve in Kid City. I know I am being asked to serve in Host Team.

But there is about a thousand other things I would rather be doing. So I need to come up with some very honorable looking excuses that I can get out of. Because I don't want to carry weight. Colossians 3.23 says, Work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. That is the calling in work. To work hard as to the Lord.

Because ultimately He is the end of our work. And when you do this. If you'll grab hold of this. What's going to happen is God is going to tap into some potential. He's going to grow you and shape you. You're going to see more of the character of God growing in you.

And that is going to have a profound effect on everyone who gets to be around you. So some of you, if you're honest with yourself. And you heard last week's sermon. And you start to feel the conviction of that. And it's time to grab hold of the good gift that God has given us and repent of that mindset. Lastly, are you prone to seeing work as an idol?

As something that takes your affection, your devotion, your mental energy. Whether that's success that is attached to work. Whether that's productivity that is attached to work. Is that you? Because if I'm honest, that's me. That this is where I fall in.

And I love my jobs. I love being a real estate agent. There's two real estate agents. Mary Beth and I in our church. And I love what I do. But it is always on the clock.

At any moment, I get texts sometimes at 12 o'clock at night about houses. And I'm consistently thinking about listings. I'm thinking about showings. I'm thinking about inspections. I'm thinking about appraisals. I'm thinking about marketing.

I'm thinking about exposure. I'm thinking about all of that. And I love it. And I'm starting to think through how I can get more results. How I can move and shake. How I can make all these things happen.

And as a pastor, I'm consistently thinking about sermons. And how the sermons are shaping me. And how we're crafting them. And I'm thinking about our community groups. I'm thinking about our community group leaders. And every week, I love that we as pastors get to sit down and pray for our groups.

That we pray for you. That we pray for the people in our groups. And I'm thinking about counseling. I'm thinking about all the different things. And what happens in the midst of all of this is that I start to think about results. That my end goal is I want to see deals done.

I want to see people changed by Christ. And I get so caught up in success. I get so caught up in the results of getting stuff done that I miss the thread. I miss the purpose. Like a child taking a handful of sand and chucking out the waves. I've completely lost the purpose of what work is supposed to be.

That it is a good, transformative gift that God has given me. That I might grow in worshiping Him. And not the things that it brings. Not the success that it brings. Not the results that it brings. So that's my question for you.

Is that you idolize work? Like is your joy attached to success in work? So that when you're doing well at work. Whether it's sales. Whether it's admin. Whatever.

When you're doing well in work. You're happy. Things are great. But when work nosedives. And it's hard. How many of you are plagued by anxiety?

How many of you can't sleep? How many of you are quick to be prone to depression? And it's a roller coaster. Of productivity. That when you are doing great in work. You are great.

And when you are not. You are low. If that's the case. You are probably. You probably have made work an idol. You have worshipped something.

You have worshipped creation. Rather than the creator. Do you idolize work? Do you have trouble shutting off? Can you be as a. Can you.

If you have a nine to five Job. Can you actually be present? When you come home. Are you consistently thinking about things at work? And if you're a stay at home mom. Can you actually go on a date.

And not think about your kids. And not talk about your kids. Can you get coffee with a friend. And not think. And talk. And obsess.

And I know that's a little bit different. Because it's our children involved. I get that. But maybe. Just maybe. Underneath all of that.

Is idolatry. Not just of work. But of children. That sometimes. You need to. Clock out.

And not be consumed. With your job. Because you have idolized. And made an idol. Out of work. And the reason why.

We've got to take that seriously. I think this is probably. One of the more dangerous ones. Because what happens is. Is you go. And you grind.

And you work. And you hustle. And then. Eventually. A season comes. Where burnout happens.

In the midst of burnout. In the midst of midlife crises. Man. People make. Really bad decisions. People walk away from the church.

Because they've gone. And they've gone. And they've gone. And they make a bunch of terrible decisions. And they're out. And if you think you're above that.

Take heed. Because you might fall. We need to take that. Seriously. And I say it bluntly. We need to burn that idol.

To the ground. And we need to repent of that mindset. And grab hold. Of the good gift. That God has given us. In work.

That we might put it. In its proper perspective. In worshiping him.

Mill City 6/24/18 Mill City 6/24/18

Sluggard

Transcript

All right, well, good morning. As Chet said a little bit ago, my name is Adam Gibson. I am one of the pastors at Midtown Fellowship. We're in downtown Columbia. We started, I guess, about 12 years ago almost now, getting close to there. We started meeting weekly in January 2007.

We were, at the time, we planted almost all college students, and so it was a nightmare, as you can imagine. We had no wisdom, no money, and lots of energy, and no clue what to do with it. And one of my favorite memories is one Sunday we were passing around the offering basket, and somebody, and this is not a joke, someone put a pack of Skittles in the offering plate, and that was their contribution. And it's like, thank you. I do like Skittles, so I appreciate that. So we have grown since then, and we've got some families and some kids, and we've planted a few churches, and we're now a family of churches in the Columbia area.

And then in, I guess it was 2012, I met Chet. We went to lunch at Monterey's in downtown. He said he wanted to plant a church. We said, that's great, you should do that. And so we just sort of sent him out. Our church planting process has gotten a little more beefy since then, that was what it was back in the day.

And Raz was a part of Midtown, and we happily sent him, and they got to meet Matt. I really like Matt and Raz, still deciding about Chet. I'm grateful for the invitation this morning. I think I'm not qualified to be a pastor here. I can't grow facial hair. And it seems like maybe that's one of those unspoken pastor qualifications at Mill City.

So I'll have to remain at Midtown with our underdeveloped facial hair. But I'm glad to be here today. So pretend like I have a nice man beard, and maybe you'll be more willing to listen to what I have to say. It'll sound more authoritative. So last summer, we did a study in the book of Proverbs.

Our church did. And I came across sloth or the sluggard. I don't know if you're familiar with the book of Proverbs. It comes up a lot, and it wasn't something that I had studied before. Up until that point, I thought sloth or slothfulness or someone who was a sluggard. I just thought it was laziness.

That was all that I had heard of it. I'd heard of sloth as one of the seven deadly sins. I don't know if you're familiar with that or the movie Seven. Not that I would recommend it, but it is a great movie. But they talk about sloth in that movie.

And the Latin word that sometimes gets used as part of the seven deadly sins is acedia. That's the Latin term for sloth or sluggard. And as part of what you guys are studying over the summer, the hammer in the hammock, which is a brilliant series name. I don't know who came up with that, but that's gold right there. This fits really, really well. And so Chet invited me to come and share some of this.

And honestly, what I'm doing is just I had to do some research on it and heard some people teaching on it. And I basically am just taking what they taught and would love to share it with you guys today. And I think you'll find that it is helpful and fits right in with your summer series. And so if you want, you grab a Bible because we'll look at the book of Proverbs together. We'll start in chapter 24. So if you want to grab a Bible, it looks like there's some on seats around you.

If you didn't bring a Bible, you can use one of those and flip. Proverbs chapter 24 is where we'll start. Proverbs is almost dead in the middle of your Bible. And so if you just want to almost try to cut it by 50 percent, you're probably pretty close to Proverbs. And then you can navigate from there. So if you're familiar with the book of Proverbs, you know that it's not written linearly.

It's a collection of wisdom and sayings, most of them from a father to a son. And so it's a little bit scattershot. And so we won't necessarily work straight through a passage this morning because that's not how Proverbs is written necessarily to be done. What we'll do is read a few different places in the book of Proverbs that talk about the issue. And then we'll draw some points out of that. So let's look at Proverbs chapter 24 first.

And then we'll flip to chapter 26. And we'll read both of these. And that will sort of launch us in. So Proverbs 24. We'll read 30 through 34. Here's what it says.

I passed by the field of a sluggard. So that's the way that Proverbs describes a person who is slothful, called a sluggard. By the vineyard of a man lacking sense. And behold, it was all overgrown with thorns. The ground was covered with nettles. Its stone wall was broken down.

Then I saw and considered it. I looked and received instruction. A little sleep. A little slumber. A little folding of the hands to rest. And poverty will come upon you like a robber.

And want like an armed man. Alright, flip over to chapter 26. Proverbs chapter 26. And look at verses 13 through 16 with me. The sluggard says, There is a lion in the road. There's a lion in the streets.

As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed. The sluggard buries his hand in the dish. It wears him out to bring it back to his mouth. The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly. Proverbs actually says some really funny things about sloth, slothfulness. Someone who is a sluggard says that this person makes up these silly excuses.

There's a lion. I can't do my job today. I can't be responsible. I can't get up. There's a lion that might get me. It's quite obviously not what's going on.

It's a silly excuse for not doing what he should be doing. It says that he turns in his bed as though he's hinged to it. Like a door is hinged to its frame. He just rotates back and forward. A very funny picture about someone unmotivated to get up and get to work. He buries his hand in the dish.

It's like I've got this nacho in my hand. But it just sounds exhausting to lift up my hand. I have to bring it all the way to my mouth. Then I'm going to have to chew it if I do all that work. There's just still more work to be done. Just a silly, ridiculous excuse, ridiculous picture that's being painted.

This is an image of someone who starts things and doesn't finish them because it's too much of a burden. Proverbs presents the sluggard as a person who makes excuses, who can't finish tasks, who leaves work undone. But it's not just laziness. So I was reading from a book by an Eastern University professor named R.J. Snell. He wrote a book called Ascedia and its Discontents, Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire.

As you can tell from the title, it's a real page turner. But here's what he said. It's really helpful. Let me just read a little excerpt here. This is from R.J. Snell.

He says, It is a mistake to think that sloth is laziness. More than indolence or apathy, sloth rejects the burden of order, choosing instead the breezy lightness of freedom, loving self more than relation or relationships, and autonomy more than the good. In sloth, one rejects the weight and density of living in an ordered creation. In sloth, we abhor what is there. We abhor what is. We abhor limits and place and order and being.

Our misguided addiction to freedom without truth is a revolt of the self against any charged world, which might demand attention, care, obligation, or respect, and certainly against any mandate of working to fill God's beautiful kingdom. They are seen as insufferable demands, as illegitimate restrictions on our unbridled freedom. And so we find ourselves hating the place God has provided, the work God has given to us, and the proper ways of laboring. He says that underneath all of what might appear to be laziness, that slothfulness or someone who is a sluggard, this is a refusal and a rejection of purpose.

That's what's actually happening in the heart of a sluggard. That really what's going on is that they've rejected God's purposes for their life. It's the rejection of being created and designed for a purpose or a particular end. The thought that I would have expectations or demands on me is too burdensome. This is a rejection of responsibility because it encroaches on my freedom. Responsibility and having a particular purpose introduces into my life restraints, and I don't want those.

I don't want to be designed for it. This is what philosophers would call a telos, a designed purpose, an end, an intended end, an aim for our lives. And slothfulness is a rejection of being designed for a purpose with a particular end in mind. So in other words, this idea is not the absence of activity. You could be filled with activity and yet still be eaten up with slothfulness in your life. God has designed us for some particular reasons with particular intentions.

So for example, God has made us in such a way that we are to relate to him. I'll give you three. God's designed purposes for our lives. He's given us this higher purpose, this higher calling, and slothfulness is a rejection of, number one, the fact that we're made to relate to God. But God has made us to know him, to glorify him, to enjoy him forever, to worship him, to submit our lives to him, to love him with all of our heart and our mind and our strength, all of our energy to be given in pursuit of God.

And slothful people reject this purpose. They don't see their life as meant to relate to God. They don't pursue God with zeal and energy and effort. They don't exert energy in glorifying God with their lives. That's too burdensome. That's too, I'm tired.

That's too constricting. Too much restraint is brought into my life to love God with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. I'd rather just lay here. It's a rejection of purpose. Speaking of the slugger turning on his bed like he's hinged, commentator Matthew Henry says, this is an elegant hyperpoly, showing how his sin is his punishment. Those that are slothful in the business of religion will not be at the pains to feed their own souls with the word of God, the bread of life, nor to fetch in promised blessings by prayer, though they might have them for the fetching.

That in being slothful, we're rejecting our purpose that we were made to relate to God. We're also, number two, made to relate to each other. This is part of God's created order for all people. If you think about back to the garden, that Adam and Eve are made to love one another just as God has loved them. That they're designed to pour out their lives for one another. But slothfulness rejects this as a purpose because relationships are hard.

People are so exhausting and they never stop sinning, especially in the annoying ways that they sin. Those are the ones they just can't ever stop. People require things of me. They want me to talk. They want me to help. Right?

Slothful person says, Oh my gosh, I don't want to be obligated. I don't want to have responsibilities. I don't want you to need my help. No, I can't have you with my phone number because you might text me or heaven forbid call me. I don't want to have to answer the phone and talk. It's hard work relationships are.

Self-donating love infringes on our autonomy and a sluggard resists relationships, particularly difficult ones. Number three, created purpose. We're made to have dominion. Dominion. We're to harness the earth's resources to create culture. For the good of humanity.

We're supposed to take the raw materials of creation and rework them in such a way that people are blessed. In a way that makes others' lives better. We're to fill the earth with beauty and goodness. To be a help to other people. So educators work to fill the earth with people who have knowledge.

It's part of our calling. Artists take raw materials and they draw out beauty from those raw materials. Accountants take the chaos of Numbers and they bring about order. And we could just go on and on and on with whatever your field or profession is. You're designed to have dominion. But a sluggard rejects this because that takes a lot of work.

Proverbs says, The land of the sluggard was filled with thorns and thistles. The walls are in disarray. The earth itself is languishing under the failed dominion of the sluggard. That he or she is contributing nothing to creation. Nothing to humanity. No one is helped.

No one is nourished. This is failed dominion. He's turned inward on himself. Instead of being turned outward towards God and to the people that were called to love and bless, the sluggard is turned inward on himself. He's folded his hands. He sleeps.

He slumbers. His personal comfort and freedom and rest and pleasure are his only pursuits. He prefers to be left alone with no responsibilities, no demands. It's actually a picture of anti-love. This idea of slothfulness. It is anti-love.

No restraints. No expectations. No demands. No obligations. Just leave me alone. Stop bothering me.

Stop needing things from me. It's an abhorrence, sloth is, of place and calling. It's a rejection of the idea that God has put me in this place, in this marriage, in this family, in this job, in this church, in this town, in this school. And I don't like those restrictions and I don't like the obligations that come with them. I actually think this is part of why Americans, statistically speaking, are more and more delaying marriage and delaying having kids. And there could be some reasons for that.

It's not necessarily wrong to do that. But if you actually look at the trends, we are pushing marriage and children further and further and further off into our lives and getting older and older and older. And I think part of the reason why that's happening is because of sloth. We understand that to be married is to be obligated to someone else. And we don't want that kind of restriction. That to have kids is to be obligated to these little humans who will constantly need you at all times, in all ways.

And we don't want anything to do with that. And so we just push it off. I think this is what happens when someone has what we call a midlife crisis. I think this is what happens when someone just all of a sudden it's like they just explode and they're gone. They're running away. They're off, you know, in the convertible with the secretary or whatever.

It's actually a slothfulness explosion. And I realize that term doesn't just roll off the tongue. So I'm not trying to like change the phrasing of midlife crisis. I think what's happening though is it's this sort of I have all these restrictions and I've built my life a certain way and now I realize I can't change it. My life is the one that I have. And I've done it long enough now where I realize I can't get out of this and I've got all these restrictions and all these obligations and people just snap because they don't want it anymore.

I'll tell you that this idea shows up in some smaller ways as well for me in particular. I've got a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a three-month-old right now. Made a huge mistake. We had way too many kids. And if I'm not careful, that was a joke. I realize you don't know me so you don't know when I'm joking and when I'm not.

I've got to be more careful with folks who I don't know. If I'm not careful, the mentality that will sneak in is I am just counting down the clock until I finally get to put them in bed. And at the end of the day, when their day is over is when my life begins. And that is a broken, busted way to lead your family and to be a dad. And it's sloth. It's, this is tiring, this is exhausting.

When you're awake, there's things I have to do. But when you're asleep, I get to do what I want to do. So whether it's these big extreme ways or these maybe smaller and more subtle ways, I would argue that all of us have some level, some degree of slothfulness going on and we need some help. So I'll continue to investigate a little bit here and give you some consequences of slothfulness. I'll just give you three consequences of slothfulness. Here's the first one.

Metaphysical boredom. I'm trying to use big words to impress you. Metaphysical boredom. Let me think about for a second how much time we spend trying to cure our boredom. Like how much entertainment and social media we just flock to. Those things are fine.

There's nothing wrong with those things. But we just flock to them. Americans check their social media accounts on average 17 times per day. One seven times per day. We spend an hour and 40 minutes per day on social media. Adults actually spend more time on social media than teenagers do in case you were about to blame the teens for skewing the data.

7.5 Hours per day teenagers spend engaging media. Just all types of media. YouTube, Netflix, whatever is cool. We're just inundated with media to cure our boredom. And I'm not... When I say boredom this is why I said metaphysical boredom I'm not saying the problem is I don't know what to do right now.

That's not what I'm... I don't have anything to do right now. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about bigger than that. I'm saying we are now plagued with I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't know why I'm here.

I don't know the purpose for which I exist. That's a different kind of boredom. That's a metaphysical boredom. Not just I don't have anything to do it's I don't know what I'm meant to do. So I have nothing to give myself to.

This boredom is a result of being unhinged from our purpose and design. So this is something people don't realize. Purpose is meaning you have to do this. To have purpose in your life you have to say this is what I exist for. This is why I'm here. I'm not here for all these other things.

Purpose. So if you want to have purpose in your life you are going to have to cut off some options. You're going to have to say this is not for me. These are not why I'm here. These are not why I exist. And if you demand that you keep all of your options open and that you are never obligated and you're never committed you can do that but you cannot also have purpose.

You will have to pick one or the other. You can either have obligation and commitment and purpose or you can have none of them. But you don't get to have it both ways. Purpose requires limiting yourself restraining yourself restricting yourself. And you know this in all kinds of smaller ways. If you want to be a world class musician you're going to have to spend a lot of time practicing.

Right? You have to cut yourself off from other options and say this is what I'm going to do because this is my purpose. If you want to be a world class athlete you have to spend a lot of time refining your skills and working out and all sorts of things you could be doing that you now cannot spend your time doing. You're going to be limited. To have a purpose means other things are not for you. And right now in America we don't know why we exist we just instinctively reject any answer that actually places limits on us.

So as soon as somebody starts talking about this is our purpose and this is what we should do and these are the things we should not do people start freaking out because we don't want to have any sense of commitment or obligation or restriction but it's coming at the cost of our purpose. If you're not gripped with something bigger than yourself to give your life to you're going to struggle. We aren't gripped with purpose we've not let anything great capture our imagination and therefore nothing is bigger in our lives than our own convenience and comfort and pleasure and desires. And I'll just tell you when you're not pouring yourself out you're going to try to find something to fill yourself up with and so we just consume social media celebrity gossip inner workings of sports teams TV show after TV show shopping whatever it is for you I've got a friend who says you can tell how he's doing spiritually just by looking at his smartphone data usage for the month.

How he's doing spiritually just by looking at his smartphone data usage for the month. That if he's doing really well spiritually that he's way less addicted to his phone and his data usage goes down he said a couple of months ago he had the worst month he can remember having and he over tripled his data for the month. He's just constantly something to fill up something to distract

Something to numb it's consumption without contentment so there's no deep peace there's no lasting joy because we're not fulfilling our purpose for which we are created we're meant to love God to love people and to do good work for the good of humanity here's how Proverbs 13 4 says it the sluggard craves and gets nothing but the soul of the diligent is content the sluggard craves

It's this constant consuming but there is no contentment because the sluggard does not embrace his purpose of giving himself in love and contributing something consuming is easier but it's also emptier it's the first consequence of slothfulness number two second consequence of slothfulness is that we lie about God that to be slothful is to speak

Lies about God we were made to be thrilled with God to be enamored with him to be caught up in how incredible he is and how beautiful he is and how smart he is and how wise he is that how somehow he's always working all things for the good of those who love him these are the kind of things that are supposed to fill us

With energy and joy and be thrilled by him but the bored sluggard says God is boring to me there's nothing about God that would make me want to put this remote down there's nothing about God that would make me want to close this app and think about him for a minute there's nothing

About God that would make me want to pursue him with everything that I have he's not worthy of my awe and attention and service his words are irrelevant to me see our misuse of time says something about our view of God and living in a persistent state of sloth and boredom is actually a denial of God's worthiness

What if just like every now and then when you were bored you prayed instead of picking up your phone not like all the time just every now and then what if you picked up a Bible instead of picking up the Netflix marathon where you left it when you had some

Time on your hands not every now and then let's still let's still do some Netflix I'm not being ridiculous here Netflix is great it's just not as good as God is right we're saying with our time and energy God TV and media and

Clothes and whatever is better than you so we get bored we start looking at pictures of other people's vacations and we look up and it's been three hours and that got the head nods because y'all do it too huh okay number three

Third consequence of softfulness is brokenness brokenness like things just fall apart things just fall apart around you and that's the language of the Proverbs is that surrounding this sluggard is just sort of disarray it's just overgrown it's broken things aren't what they're supposed to be because God gave this person this person who's being spoken to in Proverbs he gave him things to do

And without him doing those things they left they're left undone so there's just brokenness where sloth reigns you will find brokenness where people shrug off the work of of cultivating relationships then you'll find people around them who are hurting and lonely and struggling where people shrug off the work that's been given to them you're just gonna find life breaking down

My wife and I have a good friend who just decided she wanted to leave her husband he's great he's a sinner but he's great I mean he's done nothing that would necessarily you would think cause this sort of reaction they've got two kids and she just said I don't want to be obligated anymore I feel tied down I feel restricted I don't want to do it anymore and so she's out with no concern for how this is

Gonna affect her former husband or these children and so now because of her slothfulness there's this breakdown in their family and there's all this brokenness and now each of the three of them are in counseling to try to work through some of this stuff if you've been through these situations you know that these kids are now blaming themselves and thinking what should I have done so

That mommy would stay this is what happens where slothfulness reigns in rules where people reject the good purposes that God's given to them is that there's gonna be brokenness there's always collateral damage and the slothful person leaves a wake of hurting frustrated people in her wake in his wake so we gotta ask how do we break free like what do we do to reject slothfulness and

Embrace our good design I'll give you three three answers how do we break free number one carry your load carry your load that's language from Galatians chapter six verse five in that passage it says that that God has given each of us a load to carry particular things that we're supposed to carry work to do that's contrasted in Galatians chapter six with burdens burdens are unusually heavy things that we all need help with

That we need the community of faith to come around us to help us with that's a burden the language here though is is load these are the normal regular things of life that God gives each of us it's work to do and we're supposed to carry those things your your load is the work that God has given to you it's a demand and expectation and that we're called to reject false freedom and embrace our design to carry the load of the work and the people that God has given to us to embrace the call

To give ourselves to God to others our spouses our kids our roommates our neighbors RJ Snell whom I quoted earlier speaks about carrying our load and here's how he talks about it he says we do this in concrete ways finishing the report paying our bills wiping away childish tears washing the car caring for our tools doing the dishes staying in mundane ordinary work while perhaps unromantic allows for virtue since natural virtue requires repetition

There is no virtue without repetition and so we stay put we sink our roots deep parents can confirm this exhausting yes but a new character forms with every nap meal diaper wet bed and smile we become the people we are by what we choose to do again isn't that a good last line we become the people we are by what we choose to do again so carry your load carry your load in your work

And we all have work if you're a student if you're in school if you're in middle or high school part of your work is to honor your father and mother in school you get the report done like on time you read the assignment right you carry your load at your job you be on time you get your work done on time you be reliable you follow up with the client you put the finishing

Touches on the painting you keep setting the alarm and you keep getting to work on time you don't be late you take care of your tools you see the project through if you primarily stay at home with children then your work your load is to build into them to draw out their potential to nurture and come alongside of them we carry the load in our jobs we carry the load

In our relationships you allow yourself to be inconvenienced by others you do the the hard work of pursuing difficult people including your difficult weird roommate have you guys picked up on the fact that you always have one weird roommate you know this is how life works there will always be one weird roommate if you don't have a weird roommate I have horrible news you are the weird

Roommate I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that when I was in college there was a group of us that stayed at a house that we rented and one of our roommates he was downstairs and there were some mice that were sneaking in and so he went and bought a mouse trap caught a mouse

Took the mouse out of the trap cut its head off put the head on a stick put the stick in the ground he said as a warning to all the other mice of what would happen if they came around so we all saw that and we were like just I'm going to slowly back away with no

Comment you always have a weird roommate and part of carrying the load is to continue to serve and love and be a blessing even to difficult people even to weird roommates you carry the load in your marriage in a room this size

I would bet some amounts of money that someone is thinking about leaving their spouse stay do the hard work of staying of pursuing you carry the load and God will bless it he will use it in your life your persistence your commitment

You stay you serve your spouse you carry the load with your kids especially if you have younger kids they're exhausting but you do the baths you do the bedtime routines you explain the same thing

For the 100,000th time without losing your patience you carry the load with your kids carry the load in your community group I know some of you are in a group and you have difficult

People that are killing you and it would be so easy to just begin to distance yourself from that person some of you have been distancing yourself from your group because they want more for you than you

Want for yourself right now if we're honest but you haven't said anything like you haven't said hey guys I'm just going to drop out of the group I think because you knew they would actually confront you and come after you and pursue

You so you've just gotten more and more creative with your excuses don't reject your purpose don't reject your design stay stick it out God will use it we become

The people we are by the things that we do again we carry the load in our relationship with God some Christians lack any sort

Of discipline and energy in their pursuit of God that's a shirking of responsibility to pursue God with all your heart and I've heard people who I swear they sound like the

Dude in the book of Proverbs with their excuses as to why they're not getting any quality time with Jesus why they're getting no time in prayer it's like oh gosh I was going to but there's a lion outside you were made to relate to

God to pursue him with all your heart and mind and strength and when you carry the load that God has given to you over time you develop virtue your character develops over time but the more that you give yourself in love to others

You're formed and to say it more strongly you cannot become the person God is shaping you to be if you refuse to carry the load that he has given to you when you serve your roommate again you are taking yet another step in the direction

Of becoming a servant hearted person that's how it works but to get there you got to stay you got to carry what's been given to you and a lot of life is doing the same things over and over like I can't clean a room in

My house without one of my kids running behind me just knocking everything back onto the floor right after I just picked it up my kids don't want to play with a toy they want to play with the toys they just throw them all on the

Floor and do snow angels in the toys it doesn't this the type of toy is irrelevant it just needs to be a pile so I'm just constantly doing the same stuff over and over and over your character is shaped with every single load

Of laundry because we become the people we are by what we choose to do again the big moments in life are not going to be what ends up shaping you the most we have some false beliefs as Christians sometimes that these mountaintop experiences

Are the life defining life altering moments and I'm not taking away from those they can be really powerful but what I'm telling you is the things that are going to make you the person you become are the things you do a thousand

Times not the things you do once very rarely is it one single thing going to dictate the direction of your life but the things that you do over and over and over again will absolutely dictate the direction of your life you're formed by the things you do

Again here's how Proverbs 21 talks about all this he says the desires of the sluggard kills him for his hands refuse to labor all day long he craves and craves but the righteous man gives and does not hold back

The righteous man has he has become the kind of person who gives who invests who labors who stays and does I can't read this stuff and not think about my dad he's such a good example for me he's

Been a real estate agent for 30 years and he is just so faithful he does a good Job he's honest he has integrity his clients love him one of the pleasures of my adult life has been growing up and meeting

People that my dad has worked with through the years and hearing how they brag about my dad it brings tears to my eyes how proud I am that this is my dad who is faithful with the work that God gave him growing up when I would ask my dad

To play I have this is a true story I have no memory of him saying no I won't play with you now he had to have said that right like there's no way he just always did but I'm just telling you I have no memory of that because more often

Than not the answer was either yes I would love to or give me ten minutes let me finish what I'm doing and then I'm outside let's play basketball so all I remember is my dad being faithful with what God entrusted to him it's him serving and blessing and

My entire family and everyone that my dad has worked with all through the years would say they've been blessed by being around him and being associated with him simply because he carried the load that God had given him you're becoming a certain kind of person by

Staying under the weight and continuing to carry the load that God gives you and the demands on your life will form you into the person God has called you to be that's number one number two way that we break free we gotta distinguish between rest and escape

We gotta distinguish between rest and escape I think this is important and I'm glad you guys are studying it over the summer this idea of rest or the hammock rest is not escape those are different rest is when I'm recharging in a God in a Godward way so that afterwards I am ready to get back to work that's rest

I'm recharging in a Godward way so that now I'm ready to get back to killing things I gotta go to work I gotta get to hunting that's rest escape is a false substitute that we often turn to when we're tired just to turn our brains off so I don't know if you've

Ever been to the end of the day and you think I literally I'm so tired I can't do anything but watch TV my counsel to you would be no if that's all you can do then just don't do anything go to bed you need to rest if all you can do is watch TV

That's that's your body saying it's time to go to sleep right rest is not escape and you can watch TV but that's not rest because if you're anything like me you know that watching a show does not make you want to next get up and go out

To work it makes me want to watch more shows right escape begets more escape rest leads to work and we gotta learn what's restful for us and distinguish where are we inclined to just go towards escape I just don't want

To have to think about this anymore I just want to shut down I want to turn my brain off that's escape now what's restful for you might not be what's restful for me and that's fine so there's going to need to be

Some self awareness here and you got to know how you're wired so my Job as a pastor is lots of reading lots of talking and I'm never done people just keep sinning myself included so I'm never ever finished so what's restful

For me is something that is mindless I don't want to have to read I don't want to have to talk to people because that's what I do all the time and I want it to be something that when I'm done it's over and I never have to think about it

Again so sometimes yard work is actually restful for me because it's the opposite of my day Job sometimes cooking is restful for me it's just working with my hands I don't have to think about it too much it's done we ate the meal glad you

Liked it I'll never think about this ever again but now if you're a chef or if you're on a landscape company then probably those things aren't going to be restful for you so you got to know where you're coming from

And what actually is restful for you and some self-awareness is needed but if you don't know you need to learn otherwise you're just going to escape and find that you're never recharged to get back to work

So we got to distinguish between rest and escape lest we be tired and exhausted all the time and then number three and as I'm saying this I'll invite the band to come back up because we'll

Prepare to sing and respond a little bit number three look to Jesus we got to look to Jesus we break free from slothfulness by looking to Jesus Jesus carried the load that was given to him he was obedient to his parents Jesus spent

Most of his life as a carpenter think about this now the God of the universe incarnated and spent most of his time here doing work with his hands think about how honoring that is to labor and to work and Jesus did good work as a carpenter

He did not make bad tables Jesus made good tables like if you bought a table from Jesus it wouldn't wobble and you wouldn't have to fold up a napkin and put under one of the legs to get it to

Be balanced right he did a good Job he carried the load he said my food is to do the will of him who sent me and ultimately Jesus carried the load of the cross he stayed on the cross embracing the demands

And the responsibilities he could have saved himself or he could save us and he chose to save us we ultimately break free from slothfulness when we look to Jesus for our example when we realize that Jesus was our substitute that he carried

The load that he bore the price of our sin so that we might be free and through him we can renounce slothfulness and through the spirit's power we can embrace our purpose and embrace our design and find that God actually shapes

And blesses us through it let me pray for us Jesus thank you that you have embraced your load that you with joy set before you move to the cross scorning the shame Lord that you could have chosen to save yourself or to save us and that you saved us

As we want to look to your example we want to receive your righteousness and Jesus we want to reject sloth we want to repent where sloth has taken root in our lives and my assumption is for all of us we have some responding

And some confessing and some repenting to do so Lord would you send your spirit to help us see ourselves clearly to be aware to realize the places in our lives where we're pushing off the obligations and responsibilities

That you have lovingly given to us both for our good for the people around us good and for your glory and so would you help us as believers to embrace the load the restriction the responsibilities that you have given us that we would

Pursue you with all our heart soul mind and strength that we would serve and bless and pour out for others and we would do the good work that you've called us to do and the places

That you've put us now that our whole city our whole area would be blessed that's ultimately what we're after so we ask all this for your glory and for our good amen amen

Mill City 6/18/18 Mill City 6/18/18

Rhythms of Life

Transcript

Good morning. Happy Father's Day. Good to see you all this morning. We are going to be beginning a series today called The Hammer in the Hammock. It's going to last six weeks where we're going to spend some time talking about work and rest, the rhythm of life that God's placed in the world. So there was an economist.

His name was John Maynard Keynes. In 1930, he had a quote where he said, Our grandchildren will only work about three hours a day and probably only by choice. So I wanted to ask, how is your three-hour workdays going, your voluntary three-hour workdays? Have they been nice? His prediction didn't quite come true, did it? What he was doing was he was seeing how life and work was being able to – we were able to get more done because of the increases in technology and machinery.

And so what he was saying was all that was going to do to life was we were going to be more productive in a shorter amount of time, and then we'd have more time for rest. But that is not what happened. We did become more productive in a shorter amount of time, but all it has done is increase the pace at which life moves. Being able to travel long distances faster just means that you have more to do more quickly, that being able to get projects done quicker means that we just have more to do, more production, more, more, more. And the pace of life has increased. And if we're honest, most of us are very, very busy.

That's kind of the American mantra is just that I'm busy. I have so much going on. For many of us, we have – technology has made it to where we can work anywhere. But what ends up happening is we end up working everywhere, that most of us have work in our pockets, that we use our phones, we're receiving phone calls, we're sending messages, we're getting emails that need to be answered within 24 hours, and it's better if you do it sooner. And that for many of us, work never stops, and our busyness never stops, and we're constantly going. And in America, we are busy.

Life feels too full. We are overstressed, overworked, overanxious. And the increasing – the rates of depression are consistently increasing. I read an article in the magazine called The Economist. It's stationed in London. It says that ever since a clock was first used to synchronize labor in the 18th century, time has been understood in relation to money.

Our hours are financially quantified. So what I'm saying was that prior to this, there was – time was understood as separate from finances. But you might think about a day's worth of labor. But for many of us, when we began working, we started thinking of hourly wages. And so it's all of life now feels monetized, that you worry about wasting time or spending time wisely or saving time, that we've kind of connected these ideas together, and so that our time and our money are tied together. And so what it says was is when economies grow and incomes rise, everyone's time becomes more valuable.

And the more valuable something becomes, the scarcer it seems. So it says the U.S. has grown in wealth. Everybody feels busier. They go on to talk specifically about America. Like I said, this was written in London. But they say American workers toil some of the longest hours in the industrial world.

Employers are not required to offer their employees proper holidays. That's just how they say vacation. But even when they do, their workers rarely use them all. The average employee takes only half of what is allotted, and 15% don't take any holiday at all. Nowhere is the value of work higher and the value of leisure lower. This is the country that invented takeaway coffee after all.

So what it's saying is that in the United States, we overvalue work. We undervalue leisure. And then it takes a shot. It says, you know, coffee used to be something you sat and enjoyed at a cafe. You had conversations. But that's not what we do.

We roll up to a drive-thru window. And we're like, please inject caffeine directly into my neck. I've got things to do. That in general, we are busy. We are moving at a fast pace. And we are exhausted.

It goes on to talk about women in the workforce. It says, So what it's saying is that as more women went into the workforce, they also began to fell a greater pressure to be better moms. And that as many moms, as they watched other women in the workforce, began to say, no, being a mom matters so immensely. And they began to up the ante on what it meant to be a mom. And so overall, this rise in the pressures of motherhood. This article went on to say that parents today are spending more time with their children than any other generation.

That they're spending more time specifically devoted to their children than previous generations in these countries. But they feel worse about it. Feel more like they are failing. That fathers and mothers are more at home doing work. And so it is Father's Day. I didn't want to say that that was one of the statistics was that fathers have begun to do more at home.

So good Job, y'all. But it did say that dads do more of the fun jobs, like they play with the children. Or they said they do more of the kind of task-oriented. This job gets finished. So like some fixing things around the house, some repairs, or some yard work.

But it said that moms tend to do the unending jobs. Feeding children, cooking for the family, cleaning, doing laundry. They have unending tasks that it never stops. I know for many of you that you come in here this morning and we're supposed to be here. We're supposed to be worshiping. We're supposed to be praying.

We're supposed to be studying the Word together. We're supposed to be taking a deep breath and kind of relaxing for just a moment. And you can't. As soon as you sit down, as soon as you get a pen, as soon as you get a paper, you start taking, when you're going to take notes, you start writing down a to-do list and grocery list. You thought, you thought I didn't know. The reason I know this, you just thought I thought you were paying attention.

But the reason I know this is I looked over before while I'm preaching and seen my wife and thought, man, this must be a good sermon. She's taking some diligent notes. And then I come down and she's like, hey, can we get this stuff at the grocery store later? But that's the way my wife is. When a pen touches a paper for her, she begins to write out lists because she feels like she lives in a world of unending things to do. Jeffrey Godby says, working mothers with young children.

He's a time-use expert at Penn State. That's helpful to know. Jeffrey Godby, a time-use expert at Penn State. It says that working mothers with young children are the most time-scarce segment of society. That for all of us, we are busy. Now, one of the ways we've reacted to this is we've just said, this is what life's like.

We've just kind of owned it. Some of you are like, yeah, I'm busy. Yeah, I'm exhausted. But this is just a season. This is just for now. For some reason, we all kind of think that future us is going to rest.

Like, I don't know about y'all, but future me gets to sleep in. Future me gets to take days off. Future me is well rested. He's not as irritable as present me. And for many of us, we're doing that. We're like, I'll get through this.

I just got to get through this. As soon as the holidays are over, as soon as this is over, as soon as this, you know, the summer's kind of busy. As soon as I can, then I'll be able to stop. But that's not how it works. Many of us are like, well, I'm in a season. It's like, well, it's a 12-year season for you, and you need to figure out a new pace of life.

And so what has been – what has happened as a kind of a response to this over-business in our culture is that we have begun to place a lot of pressure on the time off that we do have so that we anxiously approach it. We have a vacation planned later in the year, and that's going to be our big vacation. We're going to have all of our family memories, and everything's going to be special and magic, and we've got to get everything done in that one week, and we come back more exhausted than when we left. And then there's a whole other segment of our culture, of our society right now that's just kind of rejected this.

They're extending adolescence. They're trying to avoid this type of work, this type of – They feel like it imposes on their life to take on this weight, to take on this responsibility, is going to rob them of everything that is good. And so they spend their time – I mean, they're working really hard right now to find a part-time job that pays full-time pay so they can keep up with playing Frisbee golf. And for some of us in this room, you are busy, and you're the busy type of person who can't sit still. And for others of us, we're kind of pushing back on that and being like, really, if I could do nothing and survive, I would.

If I could do nothing and get away with it, I would. And so there's some of you that have full-time jobs, but when you go to work, you're not really trying to be productive. You're not really trying to pour into what you're doing. You're really just there to get a paycheck so that you can look forward to the time off that you do have. And we've begun to push back on this idea of being too busy and life moving too fast. Now, I know that for many of our older generations, they're going to look at the younger generations and say, you don't know how to work.

Look at how lazy they are. And there's some truth to that. There's some truth to some of these younger generations right now kind of pushing back on this. But I've seen documentaries on the 60s. I know that a whole generation of people just quit their jobs, moved away from their homes, went out into the woods and rolled around in the mud wearing nothing but a guitar. I don't think this is new to this generation.

I think there's a consistent inner turmoil when it comes to work and to rest, when it comes to laziness and busyness. And we've got to figure out a better pace of life. Many of us oscillate between the two. We're busy, busy, busy, and then we're just exhausted and we crash and we're lazy. And some of us just – you'll see somebody go, this is it. It's just too much, too much.

I can't be a part of a community group anymore. I can't be a part of this church anymore. I volunteer for too much. I got too much going on with the kids. We've just got to – I'm going to quit my job. We're just going to move to a new city.

And they almost just – they freak out and they need to just reset life. But the problem is we don't have a healthy pattern. So as soon as they move, as soon as they get another church, as soon as they do all of that, they just begin to rebuild the same problems they had before. And we've got to have a better way to work and to rest and a better rhythm for it. So grab your Bible and go to Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus chapter 20. This is where God gives the Israelites the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments are the primary framework of the law given in the Old Testament. So what had happened was God had taken the Israelites. They had been his covenant people, and they had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. And so God shows up, and through Moses and through the plagues and through the parting of the Red Sea, he pulls the Israelites out.

And then on Mount Sinai, he gives them the Ten Commandments and says, This is how you will worship me. This is how you will know me. This is the beginnings of me showing you what I'm like. And so as we read the Ten Commandments, they're the framework, kind of the foundation of the law, that many of them say a major idea or concept, and then much of the law is then going to be explaining how to do that. So he's saying, have no other gods but me.

And then there's going to be whole sections of the law on how to worship. He'll say, do not commit murder. Do not commit adultery. But then there's whole sections on the law on how to relate to others and how to walk through life together. But in the Ten Commandments, we're going to pick up in verse 8.

We're going to read 8 through 11. And then we're going to spend some time talking through it. So God says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. So this is in one of the Ten Commandments. And what we see is that God says, Remember the Sabbath. Remember means practice it. Hold it in front of you.

Keep it going. The word Sabbath just means rest. So he's saying remember the rest. Remember this. He says to keep it holy. Holy means to be set apart.

Many of you, maybe your mothers or grandmothers have china or they have like special Christmas dishes, and they're set apart. They're used for special occasions. You don't go to your grandma's house and get out her fine china or get out her Christmas dishes and just start eating your lucky charms in them. That's not acceptable. She'd look at you like bugs are crawling out of your ears. She might strike you.

I don't know what your grandmother's like. But you don't do that. It's set apart. It has a special purpose. And so that's what he's saying is that there is one day in your week. Your week will be six days long and all six of the other days will look very similar.

And then there's one day that's set apart. There's one day that's holy. It's different. Just a bit of history. The Israelites practiced this. They had the Sabbath, which was the seventh day in the week.

So that was Saturday. Later, as Jesus comes and Jesus goes to the cross and he dies and he rises from the grave on Sunday. It's the first day of the week. The Christians began to worship on Sunday. They called it the Lord's Day. We see that referenced in Acts and in the book of Revelation.

And then as the Emperor Constantine becomes a Christian later, I mean, there's some speculation over whether or not he's actually a Christian, but as the Roman Empire moved in that direction, he declares that Sunday will be a Sabbath. The Romans prior to this had not practiced the day of rest, but he declares that Sunday will be a Sabbath. And then push on down into the future. When the U.S. gets started, we had a kind of a debate over whether or not we would have Saturday as a Sabbath. We would do the Jewish one or we would do the Sunday one. So we just took both.

And that's why many of us have a five-day work week or five-day school work week, a two-day weekend. Now, with retail and service industries, a lot of us do work seven days a week, but this is where that began. So here's what it says. This is in the Ten Commandments. And so what we gotta understand is that as we approach the Ten Commandments, we hold these up as these are helpful, these are binding, these are the weight of these is still present. When the Bible says to not commit adultery, to not commit murder, but I want us to play a little game.

Which one of these is not like the others? So the Bible says in the Ten Commandments, it says you should not have any other gods but me. You should not create a graven image. You wanna have no other handmade idols. You will not commit adultery. You will not commit murder.

Hey, one day a week, take a day off. Rest. It just strikes us as different, but we wouldn't. So what we kind of treat this as, a lot of times, is nine commandments and one suggestion that we act as if, of course you can't murder, of course that's evil, of course that's heinous, and then someone's like, what about the Sabbath? And we're like, well, you know, I mean, not if you're busy or have something else to do. You see, when we come to the law, we have to understand how we as Christians ought to understand this, how we ought to approach it.

We believe that Jesus Christ fulfilled the law on our behalf, that the weight of the law, see, the law given in the Old Testament was designed to really do two things. It was designed to show us our inability to live to God's standards, our inability to live up to what we were meant to be. And secondly, it was to teach us, to train us what God was like. It was to prepare us, to build into us a pursuit of his holiness. And so Jesus comes and Jesus does not abolish the law. He does not throw this out.

He fulfills it. That Jesus Christ accomplishes the law on our behalf. What he does is he lives a perfect sinless life. He perfectly fulfills the law. The heart behind the law and the regulations are fulfilled in Christ and then Christ is cursed for us. That he takes the curse of the law on himself and he dies on a cross.

That's what Galatians tells us. That Jesus takes the curse for us so that we might have his, he takes our failing report card and gives us his perfect score. That he graduates and gives us his diploma. That he swaps places with us and takes our curse so that we might be free. And so that when we come to texts like this, the weight of the law does not bear down on us. This does not crush us.

It shows us our inability and it drives us towards Christ and we ought to take it as the good gift that it is. That it does help us that the Ten Commandments are life-giving because of Christ. And so as we read this, we should not easily set aside the Sabbath. So let's pick back up in verse eight and let's try to understand this a little better. I mean verse nine. So he says, six days you shall labor and do all your work.

Now this specific commandment is for training these Israelites who had been slaves to rest. They were slaves. Their value came from their productivity. That they were useful only in as far as they were producing. And when they ceased to produce, when they ceased to be healthy, when they ceased to be strong, when they ceased to be able to do work, they were useless. And so he takes these slaves and he says, that's not how your value works anymore.

One day I want you to rest. I want you to sit like I sat. See, God wove this pattern into the world that he created for six days. The Bible and the world began with God working. With him creating and cultivating. And so he creates, he cultivates, he works, and then it says that after six days he rested.

So that on the seventh day, God doesn't create anything. He doesn't make anything. He doesn't, he just rests. He enjoys his good work. And so what this says is, six days you shall labor and do all your work. Now many of us in this room lean towards busyness, but some of us lean towards laziness.

You've been waking up at the crack of noon. And you are too valuable to be lazy. Too valuable to throw off, to reject the weight of existence that God has given you. That God has poured intelligence and strength, ability into you. And that we were designed for good work. That we were meant to do what God did in creation, which was to work and to look at our work and see that it was good.

It's one of the things that Ecclesiastes says. It's one of the few joys given to us is that we would work and enjoy the work of our hands. It's Father's Day. I want to speak specifically to men for just a second. We are seeing right now in our culture a prolonged adolescence specifically for men. We're seeing men push responsibility further down, further back, further along the timeline.

They're living with their parents longer. They're pushing off getting married. They're using Tinder rather than truly trying to pursue somebody. They're pushing this all further down the line. And we even have kind of a consistent cultural push towards this idea that some forms of masculinity, traditional forms of masculinity, are simply evil. Now, not all forms of masculinity as we've been taught are biblical and beautiful, but there is a lot of weight and beauty given to masculinity and good godly masculinity is to be celebrated.

But there are currently some, it seems, that as if they would lay the idea of toxic masculinity directly on top of just any form of masculinity and they are anti the idea. And so what they have done is what you have done when you've removed the good weight placed on men for self-discipline and self-sacrifice, what you end up getting is only toxic masculinity because you have guys filled with testosterone and no real way to use it. So they end up depressed and angry and violent. Men, you were meant to carry weight. I see articles a lot that are saying, why aren't there any more female CEOs? Why aren't there more females this?

And honestly, I celebrate the idea of females doing things. God poured value and worth into you as well, but I'm not mad at male CEOs. Men are supposed to be carrying weight. even currently with watching kind of the movies that are out with my son, there's a lot of areas right now, women, where it feels like our society is just behind you just clapping, just celebrating what you're doing and we ought to. That's a good shift from some of the ways that things have been done in the past because God, ladies, has poured a lot of weight, poured a lot of his value, his energy, his design into you that you were made in the image of God.

But watching stuff with my son, every time I watch a movie with a leading lady, she's smart and capable and strong and every time there's one with a little boy in it, he's like awkward and confusing and weird. I have to work really hard to find movies that I can show him where it's like, yeah, be like that guy. Men, you were meant to carry weight, you were meant to work. Same for women. But it seems as if in our culture right now, there are many women who are flourishing and many men who are floundering and we were designed to be tethered, designed to have discipline, designed for sacrifice, designed for good labor.

You are too valuable. God has put too much into you for you to be lazy, to reject the good design God has. So six days you are to labor. forever. But then it continues, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work. On it, you shall not do any work.

You have six days to get all your work done and on the seventh day and on the seventh day, you're not to do any work. You see, you're too valuable to be lazy, but you are not indispensable. The world continues to run even when you are taking a day off. See, God looks at the Israelites and says, your value no longer comes from your work. You can sleep in. You can rest.

You can simply worship. You can sit and remember that you used to be slaves and know now that you are set free because there's going to be a day every week where every bit of productivity stops and you remember. You remember me and you remember what I've done. You see, it's a day of rest that we're meant to stop, slow down. So many of us don't know how to rest.

Our current kind of cultural cycle is that we wake up in the morning and we're tired so we grab a cup of coffee. Some of you are like, well, I don't drink coffee. Okay, Mountain Dew. Monster. We pour some caffeine into our face. Some of us go to a coffee shop and we're like, please, I'd like a cup with caffeine in it and then I'd like a smaller, more concentrated bit of caffeine poured down in that and I'd like some whipped cream and I'd like some chocolate.

I need some simple carbohydrates. Then we go to work. We get to work. We start to slow down at some point. Maybe we start just taking in simple carbohydrates. We start eating just some candy.

Maybe some of you have M&Ms on your desk. We begin to just kind of fuel ourselves with garbage and then we go to lunch. We eat. Come back from lunch. We get back to work. At some point, you start to slow down.

You begin to, three or four in the afternoon, your body's like, well, I'm done. You're like, oh, no, you're not. If you're like me, you drink more coffee. Some of you, it's another Mountain Dew. Some of you all go get a Diet Coke from a gas station that's the size of my newborn infant. We go home.

We're wired. We're kind of exhausted from the day, but we can't calm down. We can't slow our minds. We can't stop thinking about things. Our phone's still going off. Work's still hanging over our heads.

We've got all these issues that are going in our minds, and so the best thing we can come up with is we'll turn the TV up loud enough to drown out the noise. We think maybe watching TV will calm us down, but it doesn't because it's just a bunch of stressful stuff shining in our face, so then maybe we decide we're going to lay in bed. We'll go to sleep, but some of us can't sleep, so we're using our phone to flip through Twitter or Facebook, and have you ever noticed if you do this long enough, you don't even read. You just start kind of looking at the pictures, and your brain, you start going faster and faster, and you're only reading half of a sentence, and then you're just moving on, and we wonder why we all have ADHD, and we're twitchy.

We're sticking iPads in the hands of two-year-olds and being like, here, pay attention to this, and every single one of us is losing our minds, so you've been laying in bed with a phone in your hand, which is the equivalent of shining a flashlight in your eyes. Like, that's going to help you sleep, and then eventually we take an Ambien, drink some Zequil, fall asleep, so we can get up and start again. We are over-busy, over-anxious. We don't know how to rest. I talk with a lot of pastors, and I know that even for really committed Christians, many of them, not all of them, but many of them, only gathering at the church one to two times a month, even though they would say they're devout, they love Jesus, and some of that has to do with the fact that we've lost the Sabbath.

We've lost this day of rest, and it's not just a day of rest, but he says that this is a, the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God, that it's a rest towards God. That we're supposed to stop and aim ourselves towards God. You see, without work, you'll only be able to achieve unfulfilling frivolity, unfulfilling fun, unfulfilling leisure. It'll be like eating a bag of potato chips for dinner. It's salty, it's sweet, but then it doesn't feel right. It's not weighty enough.

And so that for those of us who have rejected the idea of work, existence is too light, and it's unfulfilling. But without rest, all you'll have is unending toil. Joy and color will drain from life. You see, we were designed for life-giving labor and soul-satisfying rest. Both a rejection of work into laziness and slothfulness, which we'll talk about next week, or a rejection of rest is a form of self-sufficiency and self-glorification. We are, in our pattern of work and rest, sinning and in need of repentance.

And some of us have so self-glorified and so grown into self-sufficiency that we claim to be Christians, but we practice as if we are not because we are unable to rest in the finished work of Christ and in the fact that He rules sovereignly over the universe so that you can go lay down, you can take a nap, you can put your feet up, you can close your computer, and the world will continue to move. And some of us have begun to live as if the whole point of existence is our own comfort, our own enjoyment, that everything is meant to terminate on us, that our satisfaction, our fun, is the point of everything so that we have rejected the weight that God has placed on us to serve those around us and help keep the world moving and to reign and have dominion over the world as He taught us in Genesis so that we've rejected this idea and we have glorified ourselves well beyond our position. And when it comes to our approach to work and to rest, we're sinners who need to repent. But we need to repent and enjoy Christ.

You see, this is a Sabbath. It's a rest to the Lord. We have labor unto the Lord and we have rest unto the Lord. You see, Jesus used to get into it with the Pharisees all the time. They would argue with Him all the time. If you read the New Testament, you'll see a lot of places where it goes on a Sabbath day and it tells a story and then it says on another Sabbath and it tells a story and it says on another Sabbath.

And the reason it jumps from Sabbath to Sabbath to Sabbath is that these were some of the times that Jesus was butting heads with the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a strict sect of those who practiced Judaism and they were very strict when it came to Sabbath regulations. They were very strict as to what it meant to practice the Sabbath. What was work? What wasn't work? How far could you walk?

How much could you do? And Jesus is constantly getting into it with them because they're trying to over practice the legality of the law and they're missing the point of it. So in this conversation with them, and this will be up on the screen, it's found in Mark 2, verse 27 and 28. Jesus says this. He's in an argument with them over the Sabbath and he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. This idea of a weekly rest, this idea of you taking time to stop is a gift. It does not rule over you to hem you in, to cause you harm. It is a gift. It was made for you. We were not designed to be able to move at the pace we're moving.

If we were to right now, if everybody just had to stand up and we all just had to run, just run as far as you can go. I know some of us, we'd make it to the parking lot and you'd be like, okay, I'm done. You might light up a cigarette and just have a seat. Other of us would go a little bit further. Some of you that are like, oh, I think right now I could probably run a marathon. We're so proud of you.

We saw your sticker. But all of us eventually would shut down. Our bodies would force us to stop. And for many of us, we are higher capacity. You feel like you can handle the weight of this. You feel like you can go without rest and you feel like you can just muscle through.

And the truth is, at some point, your body will shut you down. And the Sabbath was made for you. And the Sabbath was made for me. That it's a gift from God to us that we might rest because he is good and he is sovereign. He has set the slaves free. Jesus doesn't just say the Sabbath was made for man.

He says, I am the Lord of the Sabbath. He calls himself the Son of Man. He says, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. So what it means is that as we find the Sabbath, we find the Lord of the Sabbath, Christ. That in the Sabbath, we not only receive this good gift, but we received Christ. That we run to Jesus.

That we get more of Jesus in resting because he's the Lord of it. He doesn't say he's gotten rid of it. He says he's all about it. He's the king over it. You see, we believe that Jesus Christ came and that he did the work. That we are saved by good works, but it's Christ's works, not ours.

That when he was on the cross and he said, it is finished, that meant that forever the slaves have been set free and that we can rest. That we've been set free from our eternal slavery to our sin and our guilt and the weight of the law that bears down on us. So that in Christ, we can be free. That's why he says, all you who are weary and heavy laden, come to me and I will give you rest. You see, Jesus is the Lord of rest and our hope is that in this series, as we begin to learn about work, we learn how to work unto him that we might enjoy him, but then we begin to have a good balance of work followed by healthy rest that we would work hard and rest well, that we would have life-giving work and soul-satisfying rest.

You see, many of us have downtime, but it's not rest. The best we muster is laziness, distraction, escape, when we lost the ability to rest in the Lord and unto the Lord that we might be soul-satisfied. That we might be filled back up. So our hope in this series is that we would learn how to work and we would learn how to rest and that we would all have a healthy pattern of joy-filled life in Christ. We believe that Christians ought to be some of the hardest working and some of the best resting. That we ought to know more than anybody how to rest, how to enjoy life, and that we might get a lot of life and joy out of our work knowing that all of our labor is to the Lord.

As for today, the question is, where do I need to work then? Have I rejected God's good design for me that I might labor, that I might work, that I might be productive? Have I thrown that off? Have I glorified myself in my comfort that you might run to Christ asking for forgiveness and asking for His help? Have you so over-elevated your self-sufficiency so as to lose Christ? So overvalued your productivity, your work, so as to push Him away, so as to reject God that you've lost the ability to rest?

We ask that you would repent. I run to Jesus, the Lord of rest, that He might give you rest in the gospel.

Mill City 6/10/18 Mill City 6/10/18

Salutations

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. We are in our final week in Ephesians. We made it. Nine months later, we are closing out Ephesians.

We're going to be in Ephesians 6, verses 18 through 24, which is on page 570. If you have a blue Bible around you, if you don't have a Bible, please take that home. That is our gift to you. Next week, we will start our Hammer and Hammock series, which is a six-week series on work and rest. But for today, we're going to close out Ephesians.

It's going to be in 6, verses 18 through 24. Something I've realized recently in parenting, I have almost three and almost one-year-old, is they're not very coordinated. They struggle with doing two things at once. Let me give you a few examples. My son, Bridgers, he just learned how to crawl a couple months ago, and he struggled. He struggled out of the gate.

We put him in the middle of the room, and we'd walk away, and we'd come back, and he would be all the way backing up into the couch. He knew he could back circles around anybody, but getting the coordination of arms and legs to go forward was a little bit difficult for him. He would finally get to the point where he'd do this standing push-up. His butt would be in the air, and then he would just sit there. He didn't know what to do. And eventually he would just faceplant into the ground, which was funny when he didn't bruise his face.

My daughter also isn't super coordinated. I think long-term she's not going to be super coordinated. She's going to be great at a lot of things. I just don't think she's going to be super coordinated. And recently, I've got this, like I rode bikes growing up. It was a big deal to me.

So I want her to learn how to ride a bike. So this weekend, I was at my parents' house, and we got a tricycle out that she typically can be pushed on. But her legs are now long enough to reach the pedals. I wanted to show her this is how it works. So I put her feet in the pedals, and I took one leg and pushed it down and showed her how that kind of moved it forward.

And I took the other leg and tried to do the motion for her. And she was just fine with that. I was like, no, no, no, you can do this. If you just push equal weight on both sides, distribute it, you're going to be going forward. And she's like, no, I'll just let you push me. Like she was completely content with that.

And I was like, we'll get there. Because eventually, I want her to get on a bike. And when she gets on a bike without training wheels, she's going to have to figure that out. Because if you want to take a bike forward, you need equal distribution weight on both sides, pushing both pedals down. Because if you do too far to the right, you're going to fall off to the end. If you're going to do too far to the left, you're going to fall off to the left.

In order to move the bike forward, she's going to have to figure out coordinating both those things together. And Paul is teaching a little bit of this as we close out Ephesians. In fact, most of his letters show two main aspects of ministry that need equal weight on both sides. He talks a lot about the mission of God, seeing the loss be reached. And he also emphasizes care for the church. That both of those, mission and care for the church, need equal weight on both sides.

Because if you're high mission, like if you have a community group and you guys are really good at reaching people, and you're inviting people in, you're getting to know neighbors, but you don't do a good job of caring for one another. You don't do a good job of addressing sin. If you don't do a good job of that, what happens is, is that you're going, going, going, and you will burn out and sin will creep up and take you down one by one. On the other end of the spectrum, if you are really good at care, if you're really good at building each other up, like maybe you have really good theological deep discussions, maybe you wade through really tough sins, which is good, you should push for that, but you're low mission.

You're never reaching people, you're never inviting people. What you turn into is a holy huddle. You don't advance the kingdom. Both need equal weight. And that's what we're going to look at this morning as we close out Ephesians 6, and we see the two main aspects for the ministry of the church. So he picks up in the middle of verse 18 where Chet left off last week.

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I'm an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak, so that you may also know how I am doing, how I am and what I am doing. Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will tell you everything. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. Peace be to the brothers in love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. I'll pray and we'll dive into this. Father, I thank you so much for this season of Ephesians. God, I pray that you would help us see your heart for mission and your heart for care for the church and that we might be encouraged by this and walk this out as a church. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, so he starts out where Chet left off last week. He says, To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication. That's prayers. Offering up prayers for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. So we pick up where we left off last week, that we are in a spiritual war.

If you didn't listen to last week's sermon, I encourage you to go back and listen to it. Because if you are called in Christ, you enter into a war against not flesh and blood, but the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this present darkness like we read last week. We are in a war. And in the midst of that war, we are called to advance the gospel. So Paul, in the midst of this, is asking for prayer because he understands the power as a weapon against the enemy.

And in high school, I played a lot of video games growing up. But when I went to college, I realized something. That if I would have taken my video game console to college, I would have not done well. I would have not made the grades. My whole life is taking an ounce of talent and maximizing it through hard work. So I knew if I went to college, this wasn't going to end well if I took my video game console.

So I left it behind. But what I realized was, is when I got to college, that if you wanted to actually hang out with other guys at some point, you're going to play video games. That's just what it was. So we, in college, tried to reach, we were part of a ministry to try to reach people. And I wanted to spend time getting to know guys in our dorm. And the one game that everybody played that came out when I was in college was Call of Duty.

Man, people loved Call of Duty. They played it. And I wasn't out when I was in high school, so I didn't really play it. And I would get roped into playing some of these games. And they would immediately regret their decision. Because I was terrible.

Like, I just, I wasn't very good. And we'd be playing. I'd be trying to figure out kind of how to move around, how to shoot. And I played some shooter games growing up, so I kind of figured out the basics. But I was terrible.

I was a drag on the team. And eventually, I would sit on weapons that I didn't know how to use. And eventually, someone pointed out, Hey, man, you know what an airstrike is? I was like, no, what's that? It's like, you know all those, every now and then we have bombs that are just being dropped and people are dying? I'm like, yeah, that sounds great.

What is that? You have one. And if you just press this button, it's like the cheat code. You're just going to do work. I was like, oh, that's a really good idea. Maybe next game that will work out.

I was like, no, not my team. And it's like, I was sitting on this powerful weapon that I had. I didn't know how to use it. I didn't even try. In the same way in the church, we sit on a powerful weapon that stands against the enemy in prayer. We've been given this air support from God that we can tap into and we choose not to use it.

Rather than cultivate a consistent pattern of prayer to push the enemy back, we remain silent. Billy Graham once said that a prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian. And what he was getting at was that we have this unreal power from our God to go to work through us and reaching other people to grow us into Christlikeness. And we remain silent. We were missing out on that power. Another pastor named John Piper, he said, One of the greatest uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the last day that prayerlessness was not from a lack of time.

You can insert Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, whatever app you have on your phone. That on the last day when we are standing before our Savior, we look back at all those who could have been reached, all those who could have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, if we would have spent time praying for their boldness within us to reach them, it won't be for a lack of time. That we are called to pray. And Paul, he wanted the prayers of this church. Because he understood its power. And he understood what was at stake.

That eternity was on the line. And he understood that the pattern of prayers that God has ordained, he has chosen beforehand that prayer is the means by which he advances his kingdom and his purposes. That we get to tap into that kind of power. Let me show you what that looks like. A year ago, I'm a bivocational, I do real estate. And I was in a real estate office, a different one than I am now.

And there was a woman in my real estate office, another agent, who came up to me and said, Hey, did you know that my daughter works for one of the attorneys that we do closings at? I said, No, I didn't. She said, Yeah, her name is Kaylin. And it would be, you know, she just jumped in the workforce. She didn't go to school yet. So a lot of her friends went off to college.

And it would be great if you would connect with her and just invite her into what you're doing at your church. I said, Girl, you're a team player. Absolutely. So I went. And at the next closing, I saw her. I said, Hey, I heard that you were looking to hang out with some people.

There's some people close to your age. We have this community group from our church that meets. And it would be great if you came. And what was brilliant was what she heard. That's what I said. What she heard was, Oh, a young networking group for professionals.

Great. I'm going to come to that. And she did. And it was not a networking group. She quickly picked up on that. But she came back.

And she kept coming back. And here's something we picked up on pretty quickly. We picked up on the fact that she had been around church, but she never actually clearly heard the gospel of grace. That she heard some kind of works-based righteousness, but she actually hadn't heard about Jesus and the grace that he offers. So we started praying for her.

And we started journeying with her. And then one day she came up to us and she said, Hey, this is the last time I'm coming to group. And I was like, What's up? She's like, I'm starting night classes on Tuesdays, and I can no longer come. And I was like, This is not how this ends. So I went to a different group.

I went to the Flagstone group, which is led by Jesse and Tony Ando. And I said, Hey, we have this awesome girl in our community group. I would love to get her plugged in with you guys. And, of course, they took her in. And we kept praying as we sent her off. And I know for a fact that they kept praying too.

And over time, it finally clicked. It made sense. And this spring, she stood in this room and gave one of the most powerful testimonies I've ever heard of baptism. Because people prayed and God went to work in redeeming her. We tapped into that power. And Paul, he understood this.

That's why he asked for prayer, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. That he might have the boldness to go out and proclaim this beautiful mystery that he's been tapping into for six chapters. And Ephesians. This mystery that flipped entire cities over for the gospel. Because it ignited a flame within believers and it ignited a flame in other people. Growing up, my stepdad taught me how to build fires.

We had this fireplace in my parents' house. And he finally taught me how to build one. He set up the logs. And I looked to the right and I saw this beautiful, rugged, cast iron tool set. And I was like, I'm going to use those. I like that.

I'm going to grab this poker. I'm going to jab this thing into submission. It's going to be great. And to the right of that rugged set was this fire bellow. This antique fire bellow. Fire bellow is just this little pump.

You simply just push and it pushes out air. I was like, that's cute. I don't need that. Well, he lit the fire and he got the fire bellow out. And he started just to push down just effortlessly. And it brought out air.

And fire needs air, which I didn't really realize. And it engulfed the whole logs and fire. And I was like, oh, that's actually a pretty useful tool. And I still was stubborn. Because I was like, man, I think I can do this on my own. I would build a fire.

I'd get face to face with the flames. I'd be huffing and puffing and going for it. And there's a tool right there I just could have used effortlessly. Pumping up the air. Getting the fire going. And that's what prayer gets to be.

It stirs a fire up within us. A boldness within us. It stirs a fire up in other people. And you can strong our mission. You can get face to face with the fire. You can huff.

You can puff. You can go for it. Or you can take what God has given us in prayer. And use it. And prayerfully pray for those who need Jesus. Pray for a boldness within you to stir up.

That you might actually go and proclaim the gospel. And in order for Paul to continue in this boldness. He desired the prayers of this church. To fan those flames of boldness. And as a church we need that same prayerfulness. And how we approach mission together.

Because if we're going to be a gospel centered community on mission. We need this. Because here's the deal. We are actually really good as a church. At building relationships. At throwing parties.

At inviting people in. We crush that. And that's good. I don't want to diminish that at all. That's in our culture. That is how you reach people.

Is relationally. You can do a ton of good in doing that. So I want to uphold that. But hear this clearly. You can't friend people into the kingdom. You can't.

You can friend them into listening. But you can't friend them into the kingdom. At some point. You're going to actually have to say words. You're going to have to speak words. Because the gospel is a message.

And those words are going to take boldness. It's going to take boldness for you to declare the grace of our Lord. That we were once dead in sin. That through faith in Jesus we're alive in Christ. And that you can have that same relationship with him. Because you've been separated by sin.

It's going to take boldness. And it's going to take words to say that. And when you do that. At times. It's going to get weird. At times.

It's going to be awkward. You're going to say things. And people are going to look at you like. Nah. Like you're going to have friends that you actually share Jesus with. And they're going to say.

I don't want that. And if that's what you believe. I don't want you either. And that's going to be painful. You're going to be socially cast out in some situations. You might share with your neighbor.

And then you go out and take the trash out at the same time. And you'll look at each other. And it'll be awkward. It's going to happen. Because there is a cost to sharing words. There's a cost to being an ambassador.

Which is what Paul picks up on in verse 20. He says. For which I am an ambassador in chains. That I might declare it boldly as I ought to speak. An ambassador is simply a representative. We have those today.

And in their day it would have been a royal ambassador. Who spoke on behalf of the king. And declaring his good news. So we get to be that in Christ. That we get to be ambassadors of our kingdom. Proclaiming the good news.

But he puts a caveat on it. In chains. Noting that there will be suffering that comes with it. That you will suffer for declaring the gospel. Paul was put in prison. We'll be in social situations where we are cast out.

Where we are set aside. But here's the deal. In 10,000 years from now. Is that going to matter? Is it going to matter that you may have cost some friendships. Because you valued their eternity.

Over your friendship or your comfort with them. No. In 10,000 years you'll be thinking of the people that you risked it with. That are standing beside you. In the presence of Jesus. That's what's going to matter.

So with all of that in mind. I have a few questions for us as a church family. As we try to walk this out as a church family. Who are you currently trying to reach? We did this a little bit at our family meeting this week. Who are you trying to reach?

Have you been praying for them? I don't mean like have you prayed. I mean are you regularly praying for them? Have you invited other people in our church family. Other people in your community group. To pray for them.

Do they even know who you are trying to reach? Do you know who the other people in your community group are trying to reach? Have you been praying for those people? And at the front end of this. You're like I can't think of anybody that I'm trying to reach. Who doesn't know Jesus.

Have you prayed that God would break you. Of the apathy. Or the fear. Or the busyness. Or whatever you insert there. That keeps you from actually going out.

And seeing others be changed by the gospel. Church family. We got to grow in our missional hustle. And we do that by praying. And putting weight on that pedal. That we might drive the church forward.

And in the midst of doing that. In the midst of putting weight on that pedal. We got to evenly distribute to the other side. And caring for one another. As a church family. So Paul picks up on that.

He says in verse 21. So that you also may know how I am. And what I am doing. Tychicus. The beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord. Will tell you everything.

I have sent him to you for this very purpose. That you may know how we are. And that he may encourage your hearts. So the other pedal that needs weight. Is caring for one another. And I feel like when I read this sometimes from Paul.

It's hard for me to actually visualize this. Because when I think of Paul. Sometimes I think of this weighty theologian. He's got thick glasses. He's got a loud voice. He got called up into the seventh heaven at some point.

He has all kinds of big things he has to say. He talks about mission. And it's hard for me to picture. That he intimately and deeply cared. For the churches that he was reaching. And for us to capture a picture of this.

In Ephesians. We have to go back to week one. Of our sermon series. As we talked about his time. In Ephesus. In the book of Acts.

In the book of Acts. He spent time with. He came. He was one of the people that helped planted. The church at Ephesus. For three years.

They labored there. They saw that city. Start to be changed by Jesus. And then he left. To go and plant other churches. And he kept ministering to them.

And then we pick up in Acts 20. This is where we really see his relationship. With the church at Ephesus. And how he cared. And at this point in Acts 20. He is traveling through.

He wants to meet with the Ephesian elders. One more time. Because at this point he realizes. He is going to Rome. And he is going to die. This is the last time he is going to see them.

And they pick up on. This is the last time they are going to see him. So in Acts 20. He gives this speech. And in this speech. He kind of gives the highlights.

Of the sufferings that they went through together. Of the people that were reached. And all the time that he spent there. And then he says this verse. He says remembering that for three years. I did not cease night or day.

To admonish. Which means correct. Everyone with tears. That for three years. He invested in these people. He corrected them.

With tears. Pouring over them. That they might grow into Christ likeness. And then he continues in this speech. To encourage them. And the final scene we see here.

Is they start hugging him. And everyone is in tears. And what we catch a glimpse of. Is how much they love him. And how much he loved them. It is like a father.

Who is being dropped off. To go off to battle. And it is a war. That he is probably not going to come back from. It is a powerful scene. And it is because they loved each other deeply.

And they cared for one another. And he was going off to die. This kind of care. This aspect of ministry. That we see in his ministry. Is because he wanted them to mature.

In Christ. He wanted them to grow. In knowing the gospel. And in the midst of that. In this letter. Back to Ephesians.

He knows. He cares for this church. And he wants them to be encouraged. So in wanting them to be encouraged. He knows it is going to be hard to capture. In this letter.

His emotional state. I mean it is hard to capture a letter nowadays. You write an email or a text message. It is hard to capture. How you were doing. I know they gave us emojis.

But I don't think they are all that helpful at times. So it is good to actually have someone who can communicate that. And he does. He sends Tychicus. Which side note. We don't really know.

There is no consensus on how to say this guy's name. I have called him Tychicus for a year. I listened to some audio bibles this week. They called him Tychicus. And I was like come on. And then I went back to the Greek.

And it literally reads as Tychicus. And I knew if I started this off by calling him Tychicus. You would not have recovered. You would not have been able to pay attention. So we will call him Tychicus.

They send Tychicus so that he might encourage them. And we do not know a whole lot about Tychicus. But here is what we can tell from this passage. He has been with Paul. He has been ministering to Paul while he is in prison. And Paul he needed that.

You see in his other letters that he cares. He wants people to come and minister to him. So he ministered to him. And he calls him a brother. He sees him as family. That this would have been a really hard thing to send him out.

Because he would be losing family for a season. And he sends him out knowing how valuable he is. Knowing that he is going to be an encouragement to this church. Because encouragement is what they needed as a church. The word for encouragement when it is read literally is call near. That is the idea.

That you be in the presence of someone and you be encouraged. And it is often translated as encouraged. Or comfort. Or built up. And the picture of what is happening here. Is like a fighter.

Who at the end of a round. Goes back to his corner. Whether you. This is boxing. I know some of you all like UFC. The picture is that he would be going back to his corner.

And what you do not see in boxing or in UFC. Is when they go back to their corner. They sit down by themselves. And they. You know. They guide themselves.

They drink some water. They take it to Owl. They wipe off some sweat. You do not see that. In boxing. What you see.

Is when you go back to your corner. That is where we get the phrase. I have people in my corner. Is you have a whole team that is waiting on you. And that team. As soon as you sit down on the stool.

Is going to start going to work. They are going to start mending wounds. They are going to take sticks. And stick them up your nose. And plug and cuts. They are going to start putting ointment on your face.

They are going to be putting ice on you. They are going to start mending wounds. And then what you see in boxing. Is you have the coach come in. And he starts coaching them up. He starts saying bro.

You got to watch out for his right hooks. He has been tearing you up. All round. With those kind of punches. You got to put up a defense. You got to change your strategy here.

So once they mend them. And they start coaching them up. Then they start building them up. You see that. Man. You are going to get this.

We are going to go in for another round. You are going to get it. You are going to get your licks in. You are going to come back. We are going to do this again. And we are going to finish this fight.

And the bell rings. And they send them back out. And that is what we get to be as the church. That as we fight sin. As we battle against this world. And the cosmic powers of this present darkness.

Over Satan. As we battle and go to work. We get to come back to our corner. You get sometimes to stagger back into your corner. And you have people in your community group. Who are there to mend wounds with the gospel.

Who are there to coach you up. Who are there to tell you. You got to watch out for right hooks. You got to watch out for what you click on the internet. You got to be mindful of the bitterness that is stirring up within you. And they coach you up.

And they start building you up in Christ. To send you back out. That is encouragement. That is the encouragement that Tychicus would have done. That is why we as a church say. That we give good news before good advice.

Because when you come in staggering into group. And often times this is me. I come staggering into group. I want someone to build me up and remind me who I am. That I am a son of the king. When you come stumbling in after a rough week.

I will remind you that you are a daughter. That you have been adopted in this family. And that when Jesus sees you. He does not see your sin. Or your suffering. Or your pain.

He sees the finished work of Christ. I want to remind you that you are part of a church family. I want to remind you that you did not save you. Some of you are struggling every week. Because you still think I have got to earn God's favor. I got to clean myself up.

And you are going to come in. I am going to say no. It wasn't you that saved you. It was Christ that saved you. You might come in weak. And just struggling.

And I am going to look at you and say no. Do you realize you have the God of the universe. The God who formed everything out of nothing. Is living inside of you. The Holy Spirit is working through you. And he is not going to let you go.

I am going to remind you how this thing ends. That at the end of it all. It is you and the presence of God forever. Because of what he has done for you. He is going to carry you home. And we are going to build you up.

We are going to encourage you in the gospel. And we are going to send you out for another round. And it might be every week. If you are going out to fight sin. And coming back and it is building you up. That is what it is going to look like every week.

Because that is what encouragement looks like in church family. And in our church family. There are people that are struggling physically with ailments. Struggling with sin. Struggling emotionally. And they are hurting.

And I get it. As a church family we walk together. And sometimes that gets tiring. Sometimes that gets hard bearing burdens. But I just want to clearly say something.

We see no place in the New Testament that says. That because it is hard we stop. That because it is hard we stop encouraging one another. There is wisdom and teaming up. And not getting burnt out. I hear that.

But we lean into. We are called to encourage. No matter if it is a season. Or if it is a lifetime. As a church family. We strive to encourage one another in the gospel.

There are others who are in here. That are struggling. And you haven't said anything. You have remained quiet. You haven't told people what you are going through. Because you feel like you need to bear this all alone.

I want you to hear this clearly. You are not meant to take the hits alone. That is not how this is supposed to be. You are not meant to take the hits alone. You have a corner of people in this church family. Who are ready to receive you.

Who are ready to build you up. You might be thinking. I don't have a corner. And that is why every week. We make a push.

Mill City 6/3/18 Mill City 6/3/18

Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God

Transcript

Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Do you mind grabbing your Bibles and go to Ephesians chapter 6? We've been walking through the book of Ephesians. We've got this week and next week.

And we'll be moving on to another series. And so we're going to pick up in Ephesians chapter 6, starting in verse 10. One, my great uncle, my dad's uncle, was a minor league baseball player in 1941. And he was pretty good. He was doing well in 1941. He was getting close to and looking like he was going to be called up to the majors.

And then December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor. On December 8, Franklin Delano Roosevelt stood before a joint session of Congress and declared that he wanted Congress to make it clear that war had begun the day before and that we were officially at war with the Empire of China. And on that same day, my great uncle signed up and joined the Marines. Within a year, he was in the Guadalcanal. And in no uncertain terms, in a moment, the United States was at war and everything changed. For my uncle, for my granddad, for many of your relatives, for our entire nation, we were plunged into war.

And because we were at war, everything was different. And the way we had to approach life and the way that the world would be from then on was different. And as we read this text today, we're going to see that Paul, to the Ephesian church, says, we are at war. He declares the same way that Franklin Roosevelt did. We are at war. We have an enemy and we have to act and think and work and live accordingly.

So we're going to pick up in verse 10. Let's pray before we do that. And let's see what Paul is talking about and how we can learn and grow from that. God, we ask that your word would speak powerfully today. And that your Holy Spirit would be actively present. That we might feel you at work.

We pray specifically that as we learn about and speak about our enemy, that we would approach the subject appropriately, not flippantly, in giving all the glory to you. In Jesus' name, amen. So Paul, as he's finishing up his letter to the church in Ephesus, in verse 10 of chapter 6, he says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God. Okay. So he says, be strong and put on the armor.

Get geared up. Now, if I burst into your house and said, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I need you to eat a good meal tonight. I need you to go to bed early. I need you to be well rested tomorrow. I need you to wake up early. I need you to put on some good clothes, some shoes you can run in or some boots or something.

I need you to load every weapon you have. And I don't care if that's just a stick. I need you to sharpen it up and be ready in the morning. Now, your immediate next question is, why? Like, Paul just looked at us and said, you need to be strong and you need to be wearing armor. And I think our next question is, but why?

Like, what are we needing to be strong wearing armor for? It feels like this just got intense. And it did. So let's see what he says. Verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. So Paul said, you need to be prepared to stand against the devil.

That we actually, as Christians, believe that there is a devil, a real spiritual being that is at work for harm, at work for evil. He keeps going. He says, you may be able to stand against the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So he says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.

That word wrestle means hand to hand combat to the death. It is if you were in a fight and you got all the way down to the end, no one had a weapon anymore, but somebody is still going to walk away and somebody is going to be laying in the dirt. That's the word he uses there. So it's not a kind word. It's not play wrestling. He's saying our battle, our war, our fight to the death is not with flesh and blood.

When you became a Christian, if you are a Christian, when you became a Christian, you were not commissioned to what Christians don't band together to get a bunch of guns and go conquer nations and make them follow Christ. That's not what happened. We were transitioned from a kingdom of darkness that belongs to the enemy. The devil into a transferred into the kingdom of Christ, into his beloved son, a kingdom of light that we might live out our days following Jesus in his kingdom. And it is a spiritual war, a spiritual battle that we have been called into. That's what Paul just said.

Now we believe that this is true. That we fight a cosmic battle against cosmic, powerful enemies. That's the story of the Bible. That God created the world and he created heavenly beings. And he made them powerful and beautiful and gave them jobs and poured a lot of himself into them. A lot of goodness.

And that there was a spiritual being that rebelled against God, that led other angels astray. And that he has been actively at work to fight against God since before creation. We know that when we were created and God created the earth and Adam and Eve and he placed them in a garden that a serpent came along and began to whisper to Eve. To try to sow dissension and make her doubt God. And that we're told is that serpent is the devil. That that is Satan.

That he's a real being who has been at work since the beginning of humanity to draw us away from God. We're told in the book of Revelation that he's a great dragon that actively opposes God and his people. We see him at work throughout the scriptures. I think one of the questions that immediately arises, and we don't have full answers to this, but if God created the devil, how is he evil? Why would God create something that was evil? But see, God created humans and he created angelic beings and he poured a lot of good things in them.

And the more God put in you, the more beauty he put in you, the more strength he put in you, the more capable of good or evil you are because we have free choice. Let me give you an example. My brother has a saltwater fish tank. And it's pretty cool. It's got saltwater fish in it, if you didn't pick up on that. And here's the thing.

If there's a fish in there, if you looked at his fish tank and you picked the kindest, most loyal, most loving fish in that fish tank that defended my brother's honor and looked forward to seeing his distorted face through the glass every day. And then you took the other fish, the most evil, conniving, sneaky fish in the tank, who hates my brother and his evil, distorted, creepy face, and actively seeks to destroy my brother. The difference between those two fish is very, very small. I think this one can bite this one. That's about it. They're not staging an uprising.

They're fish. They can only be so good or so bad because they're not so much poured into them. They're not that big. They're not that smart. Now, he has two dogs. If one of them was perfectly loyal and one of them was sneaky and evil and was attempting to overthrow the household, now I'd actually watch this movie.

This sounds interesting. Because there's a little more to a dog. They're a little smarter. They can bite. They can do these different things. And we know that when God pours a lot into someone, into a creature, it has more capabilities for good and for evil.

That the more intelligent a human, the more in place they have, the more power they have, the more money they have, the more evil they can do. And so he took a spiritual being and he poured a lot of power and a lot of energy and a lot of beauty and that spiritual being decided that he wanted to rebel against God, that he wanted to fight against God, and he's very powerful. He's existed for a long time and he's actively at work for evil in the world. Now, I realize that some of you want to go. Time out. Real quick.

Did you for real just say the devil was real? In 2018, in the United States? You know they just said that stuff because they didn't know science, right? Like someone would be sick and they would just be like, he's puking out demons. And we now know, no, he's got strep. He's going to be okay if we give him some medicine.

Like there's, some of us want to say, like, I just don't, like are you really saying there's like a red person who you can't see, but he's red, and he's got like a pitchfork and like comes along to you and is like, you should drink more alcohol. Is that what we're talking about? This exists? It's actually a lot worse and a lot more scary and a lot more fearful than that. And I will say that we've gathered this morning because we believe, and I would say maybe you're here because you believe or you want to believe or you're interested in the idea that there is a good spiritual being that you can't see, that loves you and is at work for your good.

And it's not that far-fetched or unreasonable to think that if there are good spiritual beings that we can't see that are working for our good, that there would be evil spiritual beings that are fighting for our harm. C.S. Lewis, who's a thinker from the last century, said there is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. That Satan is at work to lead people away from God, to lead people to hell. The Bible tells us that hell was created for Satan and his demons, and Satan knows his fate, that he will one day be judged for all of his actions and his rebellion against God.

And so he is actively trying to lead as many people astray as possible. One of the things that I've had people say to me on a regular basis when we talk about this stuff, they go, you believe in a real devil? And I'm like, yeah, I believe in a real devil. I believe Satan's real. And they say, okay, well, if he's real, why don't he just show himself? And it's like, because he's not stupid.

Y'all ever watched a horror movie? As soon as they find out there's a ghost, who's the first person that shows up at the house? A priest. He never does well because the horror movie isn't going to end with the priest. Usually. But if Satan showed up at your house and was like, I'm Satan, worship me.

You'd be like, that doesn't sound good. And if you're real, then maybe, let me look, what's this say? Oh, it says Jesus wins. Let me follow him. And he might immediately make a whole bunch of people run to Christ rather than being fine with heading to hell and not knowing it. The truth is, there are a lot of people who are going to hell and they're going to hell because they're very comfortable.

They have enough money. They're enjoying life just fine. They don't know they need grace. They haven't seen their sin and the enemy's fine with that. He's playing the long game. You're only here for a little bit and then there's an eternity.

He's fine with you being comfortable now. Everything working on him just fine now. Having no need for Christ now because there's an eternity you'll get to spend in punishment where you are separated from the love of Christ and where you don't get to enjoy all the good things that Jesus died for. We have an actual enemy who is actively at work to destroy, to harm. So he says this, verse 13.

I'm going to read 12 again. He says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So we know they have force. We know that they have power. We know that they have authority. We know that they rule and we know that they're evil and that we're in a death match with them.

Therefore, because that's true, take up the whole armor of God. So he's saying completely cover yourself with what he's about to talk about. That we would be completely covered with the armor of God. That we would take all of this together. That you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. So that was verse 13.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. I want to talk about that phrase, the evil day. I think it means this general time where evil is at work. I also think it means specific times when you are under attack. that you would actually be able to stand firm when the enemy begins to attack you. See, if you believe, if you're a Christian in the room and you believe basic Christian doctrine, you believe that God created the world good and that the enemy came in and led us astray into sin. And therefore, all humanity had fallen away from God and deserves because we joined the rebellion with Satan to have his same fate.

To be cast into hell for our unwillingness to love and follow God who deserves all love and worship. But that God loved us enough that he did not leave us there but he came in the person of Christ that we might know him and that we might have our sin paid for. That if you believe that, that you've placed your faith in Jesus because you knew you were going to go to hell, you knew that you were going to pay for your sin and you knew that there was no way that you could be good enough or holy enough or beautiful enough to stand before him and say, judge me on my account, I'm great. But that you knew you would stand before him and that he would see all that was vile and sick and twisted in you and that you would have to be held accountable for your rebellion against him.

So you placed your faith in Christ that he might die for you and that he might rise for you and that you might be clothed in him. If you believe that, then you signed on in the midst of this conflict because you were in the midst of this conflict. If you and I joined the military, we went to basic training. We had some people yell at us. We had them teach us the schemes of the enemy. We had them give us weapons that were designed to harm others.

We had them teach us how to fight. We had them teach us how to swim, how to handle emotional, mental stress while they shouted at us and almost drowned us. And then they said, okay, time for y'all to go. You're headed to Afghanistan. And we showed up and we went on our first patrol wearing our helmets, riding in our tank or our Humvee or whatever. And we rode around and then we came back and you and I came back and we're just in a tizzy.

We're flustered, you guys. Our little hearts are pounding. And we said, we need to talk to the commander. And we just bust up in his office or whatever he's got and we say, hey, excuse me, sir, buddy. We need to talk, right? Right, we need to talk.

We just went on patrol like you told us. And there are people out there, I'm not kidding. Don't forget my kid. No, they shot at us with missed rockets and guns. And we got the distinct impression that they did not like us. And I'm sorry.

This is not what we signed up for. We would like to go home. Now, your commanding officer would look at you like bugs had just crawled out of your ears because there's something wrong with you. How on earth had you not picked up on that's what was going on? And one of the problems is that we as Christians, specifically Western Christians, have this idea that spiritual realm stuff doesn't affect us, it has nothing to do with us, that we signed on for something different. That we have no category whatsoever for being attacked.

It's bizarre to us. We have no way to handle it. So what we usually do is we medicate or we hide. I believe wholeheartedly because I've been a pastor for long enough and it's not very long but I've been a pastor for long enough to know that some of you are under spiritual attack and you have told no one because you're ashamed and you're believing lies that the enemy's telling you. Because you have no category for a healthy conflict that we've been invited into. Maybe you think you're going crazy.

Maybe you think you need different or new medication. Maybe you think you need to change your scenario. Maybe some of you think it's just your job or it's just you need to move and maybe some of that is true. We're going to get to some of that in a minute. But maybe it's not.

Maybe you have a real enemy who's attacking you. Some of you will acknowledge that it's a real attack and this terrifies you as if something crazy has happened but Paul says it's not crazy. We're in a war. If you lace up your boots and you head out there it's not crazy that they attack. If you actively join a community group and you say we're going to be on a mission to see more people meet Jesus which means that we're going to walk with Jesus to confront the kingdom of darkness and snatch people out of the enemy's hands so that they might know Christ and they might spend an eternity in Him of course you're going to face opposition.

Some of you became a Christian and you suddenly felt like I thought this was going to be good and now life is way worse. It's like right because the enemy was fine with you when you were headed to hell. Now he's got a problem because you've joined the conflict. While you were pretending that you had flat feet and stayed home wasn't a big issue. When you geared up put a helmet on there was a reason for it. You have a real enemy who's actively at work.

So Paul tells us what to do. Verse 14 He says Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. All the words he uses here in the Greek are specific words that have to do with armor. So the belt was a big leather belt that had like leather strap things that covered your thighs so if someone tried to hit you it would block that. The breastplate is a piece of armor that would cover your back and your front and would guard your heart that would shield you from attack and the shoes he uses are a specific type of cleat that had big spikes that were designed for the people who had the largest shields to plant their feet and not go anywhere.

So what he just said was put on truth to guard yourself. Put on righteousness to guard yourself and plant your feet firmly in the gospel. And I think the best way to understand what he means by truth and righteousness and standing firm in the gospel is to think about what he said at the beginning of this when he says be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. That's an interesting command. He says be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might and I think that applies to how we understand the rest of this text which is that you would be strong you would actually be strong but you would be strong in Christ and in his might.

Meaning that the strength is both your strength in truth that you know the truth your strength in righteousness that you repent of sin that you follow Christ your strength in the gospel that you know and believe the gospel but it's also his strength that you're strong in him in his strength. That it's not just that you're honest but it's that you know that Christ is the truth and you've clothed yourself with him. We're going to keep going because he pulls all this together. There's an interesting thing I want us to see. 16. In all circumstances take up.

So he changed he said put on earlier having fastened he uses a verb that means dress and then he changes the verb to pick up to hold. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith. They had two words for shield one was a small one one was a big one this is a big one. You don't necessarily need to know that but I thought our faith is a big shield you might want to know that. With which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. What he means is there were times when they would shoot flaming arrows they had big shields that they would soak with stuff so that even when the arrow stuck in the shield eventually the shield would put it out.

With which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. You have an evil one there is an evil one who shoots at you and you can take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. So what he says is that we would hide behind our faith that our faith is in Christ and that is our shield that we would place on our head salvation to guard our minds and that we would take up in our hand the sword which is the only offensive weapon here the only thing that we can use to actually attack which is the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. That we would know the word that we would know the Bible and that when we were under attack we would wield it but the truth is he says it's the spirit's sword so that when we were under attack we would know the Bible and we would watch the spirit wield it.

That we can use to actually attack which is the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. That we would know the word that we would know the Bible and that when we were under attack we would wield it but the truth is he says it's the spirit's sword so that when we were under attack we would know the Bible and we would watch the spirit wield it. This is what Jesus does when he's tempted by Satan at the beginning of his ministry

He quotes Deuteronomy three times that we would know the Bible run to the Bible when things got bad we would grab the Bible we would read it out loud we would quote it out loud that we would trust in it that we would believe it that we would soak in it and here's what I want you to see in this passage that I think is so encouraging he says stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet having put on

The readiness given by the gospel of peace in the circumstances in all circumstances take up the shield of faith the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God there is not an item here that is not connected directly to Christ in the scriptures that Jesus is the truth that he is our righteousness that the gospel is brought to us only through Christ that he is our faith that he is our salvation and that he is the word of God what he says is

That when the enemy attacks stand firmly in Christ and that's the other thing he says he says stand stand withstand that you may be able to stand that our job our role the way we defend ourselves against the enemy is that we plant ourselves in Christ in his gospel and we don't move that this is what guards us against attack because here is the thing we are told in scriptures that the enemy is a liar we are told that he is an accuser we are told that he is an attempter

We are told that he is a murderer so let me tell you things he does he shows up to you and begins to convince you that sin will bring you joy begins to convince you that sin will give you happiness he begins to convince you that the reason God has told you no to that is because he is not really trustworthy he is not really loving he does not want what is good for you what is great for you and he begins to convince you that you ought to chase after something he begins to tempt do this do this

Chase this you will love this this will be good for you you will enjoy this everybody else is doing this he begins to attempt and then he accuses see he has schemes so once he tempts you and once you sin then he says you are not a Christian look at you you make God sick you don't actually believe this he begins to draw you away from if you are in a community group or walking with church family or you have Christian friends he begins to draw you away from them he begins to say you can't be around them acting like this do you know how ashamed

They would be of you if they knew this was true you know none of them struggle with this you know that they will see you are a fake if they find out you are a sinner he is accusing you are the worst he lies nobody loves you nobody wants you around if you quit hanging out with your group you know what it will do if your group does not contact you well they will say see they do not even notice you are there they do not even notice you are gone nobody cares about you

You might as well just go back to your old friends you might as well just go back to your old ways you are not really a Christian anyway this is what brings you most joy anyway and he will go back and forth he will go back and forth on this is what will make you happy and he will use it to accuse you if your group does a good job of contacting you you know what it will say they are just doing that because they have to they don't really care about you or they are just doing that because they are legalistic and you can't show back up now because they are holding it against you that you haven't been there and if you go back and confess this

You can't tell anybody this you are going to have to take this with you to the grave and it is all lies how did you become a Christian in the first place you were the worst and if you don't know that you are not a Christian if you think you became a Christian by being moral and standing in your own righteousness you don't have Christ but if you know that you came saying I am a sinner who needs Jesus because all I have ever done is messed this up and all I can ever bring is what nailed him to the cross and I have nothing to offer and if you show back up to your group and say hey guys I have been running after

All sin that I have ever chased before and I need Jesus again do you know what your group says yes we need Jesus too do you know how good he is do you know how much he forgives do you know how much hope is in him it is a lie nobody loves you a lie Jesus Christ died for you you were purchased with blood we have a breastplate of righteousness when he comes to you and says you did this it pings off our chest you're right I did that but I'm covered by Christ his righteousness for me when I stand before Christ when I stand before God I am clothed in righteousness not my own but Christ

Tell me some more stuff I did that was messed up let's keep talking about how good Jesus is I'm glad you brought this up let's spend the rest of the day praising him what else did I do come on tell me I did do that Jesus is good he forgave me of that that's like a scene from Oh Brother Where Art Thou where he goes and gets baptized and he comes out and he says he forgave me of all my sins even that piggly wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo and looked at him and said I thought you said you were innocent of those charges

Well I lied and that's forgiven too the enemy comes along and tries to accuse you of something if you're in Christ it's forgiven there's hope there's freedom there's truth there's salvation that guards your head you stand firmly behind faith you plant your feet in the gospel and you're not going anywhere and you grab a hold of the Bible because that's what moves and works and fights and defends that you might know the truth and you might know Christ and you might have him dwell in you and you might be saved now his children

This is why so often we say and we so often forget we want to talk about good news before we talk about good advice and we want to talk about Jesus before we talk about you what that means is that when you're in the middle of sin I don't want to come and say well here's a good way to stop looking at porn or here's a good way to I got over my addiction to that here's how like we don't want to do that what we want to come along and say is Jesus is good because the truth is we stand firm in the gospel and in nothing else our hope is Jesus

And nothing else and in the midst of attack we plant ourselves in Christ and his righteousness and his goodness and his salvation and his truth and we don't go anywhere so often even as a pastor I'll be talking to somebody specifically when I've been walking with somebody for a couple weeks or months and something and I just am like I just want something so good to say to them I really want to help them and the truth is what I ought to help them with is knowing the truth knowing their salvation knowing where their righteousness comes from

Knowing that they don't have to go anywhere they can plant in the gospel and they can't be uprooted that I would point them to Christ and nothing else and no one else so we believe this church we believe that we have a real enemy throughout the new testament if you'll read the gospels you'll see that Jesus interacts with demons that demons actively harm people he interacts with sick people and there are actually just sick people there are people that it says are epileptic which means they have seizures all the time and he heals them but then there's also a time

Where he heals a boy who has seizures and the seizures are caused by a demon I know this messes with us but if we believe it and know that this is what we got called into we got to realize this is true that in the new testament we'll see that demons cause mental issues emotional issues self harm issues physical issues and we believe as a church that you're a whole person and if you're struggling with any of this here's what we think let's address the whole person so if you came to me

And said I'm really struggling with depression what we would do is we'd ask some questions because you're a whole person what's your sleep like what's your diet like what's your exercise like because those affect you depression makes you want to do none of the things that would help you not be depressed we ask questions has the sun seen your face in a while but then we also ask if you've seen the sun's face in a while have you gotten in your bible are you looking at Jesus are you running to him we ask questions about I had somebody come in

And say I think maybe I'm dealing with some spiritual warfare every time I try to read my bible I fall asleep I said okay where do you read when do you read your bible at night where do you read your bible in my bed okay we'll pray about the spiritual warfare because it could be that also read it at your kitchen table during the middle of the day and see how that goes or at least read it at your table before you go get in your bed at night you're a whole person we also had someone say when every time I try

To read my bible I'm just overwhelmed at like cussing at Jesus like I just can't think clearly because all I'm doing is cussing Jesus if I close my bible it stops okay let's pray about that because that sounds spiritual so let me just throw some things out there for us to start thinking through this and be aware do you deal with consistent nightmares as a normal part of life that most of these things you have been told by the enemy if he's attacking you to just accept this

This is how life's going to work for you consistent nightmares specifically where you see similar characters that do weird things sometimes you'll wake up and go I think that was a demon in my dream consistent unexplained anxiety anger sadness riding along normal day sad riding along normal day panic attack in a conversation and suddenly your heart rate's way above

Where it should be again we believe you're a whole person this can be caused by different things but we also believe the enemy can do stuff one of the ones that we've seen a good bit of is that you have consistent negative thoughts about you or others sometimes in your brain is not even if you were to be honest and really think about it it's not exactly really even your voice it's inside your head but it's not your voice

It's not really you talking one of the ways to know this is you are telling it to shut up and it won't stop I don't want to think about this stop stop stop shut up and it's accusing you it's saying things to you that maybe your parents said to you it's saying things to you that maybe you heard in middle school it's saying things to you repeatedly about how no one loves you Jesus doesn't love you nobody wants you around

You come in here on a Sunday and it sits and says you don't belong here nobody wants to talk to you you ought to just leave you can hang out with your group you can't even hang out with them because you just feel overwhelmed and feel anxious and as soon as you leave you feel better that sounds like a scheme I'm going to let you be happy as long as you're away from all the things that God loves and all the people that love you and all the things

Where Jesus is at work and I'm going to mess you up when you get around so that I can trick you into thinking the best place for you to be is away from these people that sounds like a scheme and we believe that the enemy actively does that we know that the enemy actively does that and it's not weird and you shouldn't be ashamed here's one of the things that he comes along and does some of you right now are talking yourself out of telling anybody this stuff and here's for a few reasons

Why consistently he comes along and says no no no you're in your head going no no that's not it that's not it the reason I talk bad about myself is just something I've done forever can I just pause you for a second if you sit and consistently say negative things about yourself who cares where it comes from let's stop that it's not true it's not true in the gospel

You have been redeemed you are a beloved child of God you are welcomed into his kingdom you belong to this family you've been purchased with blood you have new blood pumping in your veins you will have an eternal kingdom that you exist with Jesus in don't sit and tell yourself lies some of you are going to say no no no that's not it and you're going to try to defend not having to pray about this

Not having to walk through this some of you are going to think maybe this was spiritual maybe the enemy is at work and you're going to immediately feel this shh that's one I've dealt with something weird will happen I'll get in an argument and suddenly be way too angry I'm a sinner and if I'm going to be something

It's going to be too angry just so y'all know I'm way too angry I'll think I need to pray about this and then I'll immediately think no no shh don't pray about this that'd be weird don't do that and let me tell you something

Holy Spirit has never come along and told me not to pray about something enemy might my sin might but all I know is when that comes along oh it's praying time another one that we've seen is the enemy tells you you're crazy you can't tell anybody this and here's the thing from Grecian

Times on up until like the 1800s doctors used to do a practice called bloodletting which was you would go to them and say you were sick and they would drain some of your blood it was not a helpful practice if you went to a doctor now and they were

Like what's going on I have anxiety and I've been throwing up and they were like hmm probably too much blood let's just pop a hole in you squeeze some of that out and you'll be fine you would say you know what I'm gonna go get a new doctor and check out

Yelp later can you Yelp doctors because I'm gonna I'm going to here's the thing if you're dealing with spiritual issues Jesus is the only doctor there's only hope in Christ if you're under attack by an

Enemy he's the only one who defeats it so you can go to a psychologist you can go to a psychiatrist we recommend some different counseling centers because we believe you're a whole person there may

Be some things you need to talk through but we also want to pray with you we also want to walk with you and what's true in the gospel we also remind you

Who Christ is because the best thing that our culture can give you is medication because they can't do this if they don't have Christ because only Christ does this so here's what Paul says 18 praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and

Supplication to that end keep alert with all perseverance making supplication for all the saints so what he just said was put on all this armor be very strong and immediately we want to think okay we're going to fight and what's

He say get geared up be really strong put on the armor of God stand firm in the gospel and let's pray one of the quotes from one of the commentaries I was reading on this text said nuclear wars cannot be won with rifles likewise

Satanic wars cannot be won by human energy you can't be strong enough you can't be good enough you can't be smart enough so you stand in Jesus and you pray we ask Jesus to go

To work and can I tell y'all something about Jesus if you read your Bibles something is imminently predominantly beautifully clear Jesus is terrifying let me tell you about someone who's terrifying if you're behind him and he stands in front of you

That's beautiful and amazing and if you're in front of him and he's coming at you it's terrifying there's a story that's told in all three of the synoptic gospels it's in Mark Luke and Matthew Jesus and his disciples show up on a boat and they go to an area where there are tombs it's this whole kind of cliffside

Area near this town where they bury all the people which was weird Jewish people shouldn't be hanging around tombs that's where they land their boat and they show up and while they're there there is a crazy naked guy we're told in the Bible that he's a demon possessed or demon afflicted

One of the questions that comes along with that sometimes is like can they completely take over you like the Bible doesn't really make all that clear we know that as Christians you belong to Jesus so they can't but let me tag

This real quick you ever had a really terrible friend who just when you got around them made you depressed or sad or angry or whatever like every time you hung out with them they just made you feel bad about yourself

It's a bad friend you guys they talked you into doing stupid things it's a bad friend imagine demonic activity sometimes is like having a bad friend you can't see and since you can't see him you don't ever tell him to

Go away but in Christ you can't so anyway there's this guy who's got demonic stuff going on so much so that he is naked he's withdrawn from society he cuts himself with rocks so he's got mental issues he's got social issues he's got self harm issues he cuts

Himself at different times this part of the city has gone out and sent men to get him they capture him they chain him up they put guards on him he breaks the chains and busts out and stays naked and lives in the tombs so he may

Have shackles still on him he may have broken them off we know he's naked we know he cuts himself this guy looks scary they get out of the boat they start walking we're told that he like runs towards Jesus he's yelling he falls on his knees before Jesus now if you're one of the

Disciples you just got off the boat you're in a tomb area maybe you're one of the disciples that was a little bit creeped out by tombs but you weren't going to tell anybody we don't know which one this was or if any of

Maybe they were all really brave but I'm thinking one of them was like I don't really like graveyards you guess there's a naked guy so now you're a little more uncomfortable he's yelling he's running and I think there was this moment where the disciples are like we fighting

We running we can get back on the boat I'm gonna go over here just in case like I'll sneak around him Jesus just stands there he falls on his face before Jesus and he begs for mercy and all

Jesus did was show up Jesus is terrifying at the end of scriptures he rides in on a horse he uses his sword which comes out of his mouth it's the word of God and he slays his enemies at some point the enemy

Satan holds another uprising and we're told he's just snatched up and killed tossed into the lake of fire at some point God's had enough and let me explain something to you the reason why we're

Told in this text to stand firm in Christ is because if we're in Christ nothing can assail us nothing can get to us nothing can harm us we don't stand firm in ourself and our own strength we stand firm in Christ and Jesus is terrifying

But if he's the shield in front of you the helmet on your head he's guarding your heart then you in Christ are terrified and have nothing to fear we have a real enemy who actively works to harm so we remember the gospel

And we pray and if you are struggling with any of this do not get talked out of it grab some Christians and say we need to pray then he's tricked me he's blinded me he's led me astray I've bought into his lies I believe

I'm not welcome I believe I'm not loved he's been telling me lies about y'all and what y'all are thinking that's one of the best ways to know the enemies at work he's reading other

People's thoughts and telling them to you it's nonsense here's why she looked at you like that here's why he said that you were unintentionally they on purpose didn't invite you to that they don't want you around you don't belong here

They wish you weren't here you make everybody uncomfortable nonsense we belong to Jesus so we belong to each other we walk in the hope that he offers Matt's gonna come back up here and we're gonna do that as a group of people

Who stand firm in the gospel that Jesus Christ is our righteousness that he alone is truth and that truth shatters the lies of the

Enemy and we're going to as we belong to him we're going to stand up in a moment we're going to take communion which is that his blood was poured out for us his body was broken for us

And that we hide behind that the enemy has no claim on us Colossians 2 says that the enemy was disarmed when Jesus was nailed to the cross because the only claim he had on us was our sin and Jesus paid for

Our sin the only power he had over us was sin and Jesus paid for our sin and we have an eternal hope in Christ we'd love to talk with you we'd love to set up some pastoral stuff we'd love for you to go

Talk to your group leaders we'd love for you to talk to some other people in your group if they're uncomfortable or don't know quite keep walking until you find somebody who says yeah let's pray about this let's walk

Through this we're gonna take communion Matt's gonna play give us a little bit of time to pray you need to move around the room right now and just grab someone you can go grab him right now and say I just need to not chicken out later I need you to

Pursue me later so that we can talk about some stuff I don't want to talk about it right now but I know if I don't talk about it right now I won't talk about it ever and I need as redeemed victorious

People who are covered by Christ let's pray God we thank you that in Jesus we have nothing to fear but we have everything to be ready and guarded up against that you have given us the full armor and that we might put it on I pray

That we would be a people that know the truth that are clothed in righteousness that are guarded by your salvation that stand firm in our faith in the gospel and that love and know the word of God we ask that the gospel

Would cover us and that we would actively pursue being strong in you that we would cease to be strong and all the other things that we've put a lot of time in and we would start being strong in Christ that we might stand firm and that we might be

Actively a part of your mission to see more people come to know you and the freedom and the hope and the life that's in you so that there would be fewer people that live in Columbia South Carolina that go to hell that Columbia would start

Looking a little more like heaven and heaven would start looking a little more like Columbia that you'd be actively at work in us we pray for those that are struggling with enemy attack that they would not feel weird that they would not believe the lies of the enemy that they're

Crazy or that they can't talk about this that they would cease today to be attacked and not fight back standing firm in the gospel this would be a place of freedom and joy and life because all of those are given to us in Jesus Amen he Oo dangers

As if they do everything in that participate we have a too essa come in to me います to them to me come in os

Mill City 5/20/18 Mill City 5/20/18

Children and Parents

Transcript

At some point, you found out you were going to have a baby. And there was excitement and there was fear. Maybe you read some books. Maybe you just watched YouTube videos because your books aren't your thing. Maybe you just asked some people. Maybe you read mom blogs or dad blogs.

And then, as scary as it was, at some point you headed in to have this baby. And this experience, which you had been told was going to be beautiful and natural and lovely, the best word to describe it was traumatic, terrifying, seems very unnatural. You have this child and this process took anywhere from 10 to like 150 hours. You have not slept. Then they hand it to you and they say, best of luck, you'll never sleep again.

You head home, you've got this child now and it is for some reason, and mostly the reason is that God has tricked you. You love this thing. But it gives no objective lovability other than it is kind of cute when it is asleep, but not even for the first couple of weeks. They don't look right when they come out, you guys. Mostly it yells at you and is actively trying to destroy the relationship you have with your spouse because it makes you have a lot of discussions at 3 a.m., which don't seem to go well. But you love this thing and then it begins to grow.

And somewhere around, maybe it's eight months, maybe it's 18 months, you have this moment with this child when you look at it and you think, are you trying to start something with me? I think you're doing this on purpose. Like you can't even speak English, but that was malicious. Like you actually understand what I want you to do and you're actively doing the opposite of it. And welcome. It's begun.

Now you have maybe a two-year-old who's laying on the ground crying because you won't let him or her eat toothpaste or because you wouldn't let them sleep in a snow jacket. And you're sitting here going, we live in South Carolina, why do I even own a snow jacket? I could have avoided this altogether. Then at some point they go to elementary school and you think, finally, you're out of my house. We're going to get back into kind of a normal rhythm. I'm going to miss them, but also not that much.

And then all of a sudden, you've got to go to the school all the time because you're now learning what the stress is like for a child who's having behavioral issues at school or who's having issues with keeping their grades up. And so elementary school becomes more difficult than you thought it was going to be. And then you hit middle school. Maybe you've kind of gotten in a rhythm of school and this is going well. You hit middle school. And suddenly this child cares more about what their friends think than you think.

And you're finding they also care a lot about what the Internet thinks and you think that's not great. Then they hit high school and you start beginning to watch them carry out behaviors that you had. You begin to watch them make mistakes that you made. And this process is increasingly difficult. When they used to talk to you and confide in you, now they just head into their room. They seem embarrassed by you.

At some point, it's time to send them away. And if you're like my mom, you believe that God intentionally made teenagers annoying so that you wouldn't mind that they left. But you send them away to get married, to go to work, to go to school, to join the military. And there's this moment in that where this is, I'm ready for you to go. This is what we've worked towards and I don't know if I'm ready for you to go and I don't know if we've done enough work and I don't know how this is going to work out. And then as they continue to grow, you still find that you have anxiety and struggle and fear and how life's going and how them beginning to raise children is going and it just never seems to stop.

And for some of you, you don't have children. You're still in the category of child or growing out of being a child. And you have found that living with your parents and relating to them is extremely difficult. And maybe you figured it out when you were two and they wouldn't let you eat toothpaste. It was that moment when you realized their job was going to be to destroy you and your job was going to be to return the favor. We're picking up in Ephesians today in chapter six where Paul is specifically addressing children and parents.

So in this section, he's doing household code and what he's basically saying is, okay, as people who believe the gospel, as people who follow Jesus, that affects how we live our lives. And so he begins to address major relationships in our lives. How children relate to their parents, how parents relate to their children, what that looks like and how we walk that out. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to begin to read the text together. God, as all of us most likely are in a situation where we are children, we have parents that we need to relate well to, and many of us are parents or about to be parents, we just ask that you give us help as we study this, that your wisdom would sink in and that we would apply well your word this morning.

And we thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. It begins, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. All right, so that word children, for many of you, there may be this, okay, where do I fit? I don't have children. Am I a child?

And for a lot of you, you're saying, no, I'm not. I used to be, but I'm not anymore. So I'm going to help you out. That word in the Greek, children, refers to those who are dependent on their parents. So if you live in their house, if they're paying for your stuff, if you're driving their car on their insurance, if they're paying for your schooling, you're in gold or brown or whatever color that is.

You fit the category. And so it says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. When we talked to husbands and wives, we specifically said, husbands, don't elbow your wife. Wife, don't side-eye your husband. Parents, that does not apply to you. You can snap and point.

You can do whatever you want. You can hit them in the leg. They have to obey you. That's the zone they're in. And so, children, this is, I don't know, many of you are going, wait a second, I'm 18, I'm 19, I'm about to be. It's like, yeah, about to be isn't.

It means dependent. It's not a derogatory term. It just means, do you still kind of belong to your parents? And the role that you have is to obey your parents. It says, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Now, I know, for many of you, this feels really difficult, because your parents seem mostly clueless.

They don't seem to understand how technology works. For some of you who are younger, and like maybe, you know, it was embarrassing that they didn't know what dabbing was, and then it was worse when they learned what it was. Like, I don't know. I don't know the zone you're in with your parents, but, but your role, your biblical role, if you are a Christian, is to obey them. It says, obey your parents in the Lord. So, I want you to see that that phrase, in the Lord, means that, that your submission to your parents is worship.

It is through them to, to the Lord, to Christ. That's who the Lord is. So that you, as a Christian, are saying, no, my role is to obey my parents, because I, I still live here, because they still pay for things, because I still kind of, I'm under their umbrella. I'm to obey them. I'm to follow their instruction. I'm to, even if I disagree.

So here's what that means. There's some freedom in that, and some restraint in that. The freedom is this. You don't have to agree with them. That's not what obedience means. The restraint is, you still have to do what they said.

But there is some freedom, and they don't have to win you over. This doesn't have to be a long conversation. You don't have to be completely sold. You can decide, I will obey you right now, but I'm not doing this forever. And it says, for this is right, and it says, in the Lord. So I do think this does specifically apply, the same way we talk to husbands and wives, that your obedience to your parents, is ultimately to Jesus, so that Jesus is above them, and if your parents are actively calling on you to sin, that you can say no, as you follow Christ.

That your goal would be, as we said to wives, to say yes to your parents, while saying no to sin. And so if your dad comes to you, and he says, hey, I've drawn up in an awesome heist, and we're going to rob a bank. You can say, I'm sorry, but I won't be able to partake in this one. But if you want to open a lemonade stand, or a hot dog truck, I'm in, I'm on board, I can't do this one. If you want to join the circus, I'm in, I'm on board, I can't do this one. It says, for this is right.

Then it says, honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise. And then he says, here's the promise, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land. Okay, so, children, who are dependent on their parents, obey. All children, who have, doesn't matter how old you are, honor. So you're supposed to obey while honoring, and then later, as you are an adult, who is handling, carrying your own, caring for your own family, you are out of the zone.

And some of you are kind of half and half, because it's like, well, I'm at school, and I'm paying for most of my stuff. They're paying for school, so it's this kind of, I'm in the zone where I'm transitioning from, just obey, to just honor. But this means, that it doesn't matter how old you are. You're to be respectful to your parents, you're to be kind to them, you're to answer their phone calls, you're to think about them, you're to care for them, you're to check in on them, you're to hold them with high regard. And then he says, there's a promise here. It says that you may live long, it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land.

This is a promise that was given, in Exodus 20, this is one of the Ten Commandments, it was given to the people of Israel, and basically it was saying, this is how society ought to work, and as people honor their parents, and hold their parents in high regard, then everybody lives long, everything goes well, like this is a general principle, it's not a specific thing to where, if you honor your parents, you'll get to live to 85, and if you dishonor your parents, you make it to 20, like that's not how it works. Sometimes your parents tell you, that's how it will work. If you dishonor me again, I will end you. But that's not the specific promise, it's not to every individual, but in general, what it is saying is, honoring your parents, it's kind of a sign saying, this way to life, this way to things going well.

That in general, much of your goodness, and health, and joy in life, begins with your healthy relationship, to your parents. One of the things my dad used to say, was he would say, boy, ain't nobody who's worth anything, disrespects his mama. He said, you can join the mafia, you can go to the penitentiary, those people still love their mamas. The only people who don't love their mamas, are messed up. That's what he would say, like this is my dad's wisdom here, but his point was, that in general, this is where baseline life health comes from, is honoring, appreciating, loving, respecting, your parents.

Now, some of you are parents, and that's not what's happening with your children, and I'm sorry, that's painful. And some of you are children, who have parents, who you were looking at this, and going, and I hate this text, I hate this commandment, because my parents do not deserve honor. I was abused, I was neglected. They did anything, but be honorable. And I want to let you know, that that is extremely painful, and I am sorry. But you're free, from having to have honorable parents.

This is in line with, when Jesus says, that we ought to love our enemies. That it's about who you are, and who you belong to, rather than who they are, and how they've acted. Now, you may not be able to be around them, for safety reasons, but there's a way to still speak of them honorably, even if you're being honest about their behavior, to treat them well, to not run them through, the mud. But we're called to, honor, our parents. Then he goes on, he says, fathers, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up, in the discipline, and instruction, of the Lord.

Oh, real quick. Some of you, maybe while you're at school, because I know we've got some college students here, maybe while you're at school, you're just in the honor your parents is on. So you don't need to do things, that are openly, flagrantly disrespectful to them. And then some of you go home, during the summer, and you move back into the obey zone. So, you're 23, you're 22, you've been living on your own, and your parents say, you have to go to bed at 10 o'clock. Well, I am sorry, but as you worship Jesus, you go to bed at 10 o'clock.

And some of you have parents, who have more restrictive attitudes, and I'm sorry, you have more restrictions. And some of you have parents, who have very little restrictions, and when you show up, they're like, some of you, they looked at you and said, you're 17, you're an adult, do what you want. And I don't know how well that worked out for you, maybe you handled that fine. Some of you, when you were 17, needed parents to not say that to you. But it is based off of who your parents are, not what other parents do, not what you think parents ought to do.

It is based off of who your parents are. And so, the situation that you're in is, in Christ, obey them, and realize that there is a time limit on that. At some point, you just get to move into honoring, and you won't have a 9 o'clock bedtime, like I had my entire life. And then you'll find, that because you went to bed at 9 o'clock, for your entire life, you still impose that on yourself. And you don't make many friends in college, because you're asleep. It is what it is, you guys.

I am friends with the people who were my roommates, because they saw me during the day. Alright. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction, of the Lord. I want to point out, that it begins with fathers. Okay, so this has to do with, the understanding, the biblical understanding, that husbands are the head of the household. So, husband is head of his wife, that's what we just learned in Ephesians, and therefore is head of the household, and is responsible for the household.

This is not meant, to say anything negatively, about mothers, or to exclude mothers. It is meant to, pin fathers to the wall. So, it's not meant to be, because the truth is, the Bible upholds mothers. You'll notice earlier, it says, children obey your parents. It doesn't say, obey your fathers. And it says, honor your father and mother.

It doesn't say, honor your fathers. This parenting is upheld, motherhood is upheld in the Bible. If you'll read the Old Testament, it's like a highlight reel, of mothers being amazing. There are so many stories, where a mom is on her face, praying, and her husband, is in the vicinity. And she is actively involved, with her children. And her husband, was mentioned at the beginning, because he's the father, of that child.

There are so many stories, like that in the Bible. And so many places, where motherhood is upheld. And here's an area, where the Bible is specifically saying, hey fathers, we gotta talk for a second. So fathers, we gotta talk for a second. What this means, is that parenting, is not outsourced, to mothers. And this is easy to happen.

And here's one of the reasons, why I think this is easy to happen. When my wife and I first had a child, I knew, zero things about children. I had practiced for having a child, caring for a child, in my life, zero percent of the time. My wife, when she was a child, they gave her, fake children. And she rocked them, and fed them, and pushed them around, and I've seen home videos, where there was a, they gave her a doll, and she said, oh, open it up, I just wanna hug it. Okay, so she trained, since she was like two, for this moment. all I ever trained in, all I ever trained in, was like how to kick things, how to throw things, how to break things, how to shoot at things, none of that applied, to having a child.

I was like, if something comes at the child, I'm ready. You tend to that, I'm gonna face it this way. Like that was, like that, so what happens, a lot of times, is forefathers, as soon as the child is born, you're just like, I don't know, and the mom, seems to just, no. And I don't know, if she's faking, I don't know, if she has like, hormones, that have just kicked in, and like, I had no hormonal changes at all, when we were having the, like I was the person, who was like, are you still like Taco Bell, magically all of a sudden? But like, I always liked Taco Bell, that wasn't a new thing, my hormones weren't doing anything weird, I was the same, I still like Taco Bell, she doesn't anymore, but whatever, I'm sad, it's okay.

That have just kicked in, and like, I had no hormonal changes at all, when we were having the, like I was the person, who was like, are you still like Taco Bell, magically all of a sudden? But like, I always liked Taco Bell, that wasn't a new thing, my hormones weren't doing anything weird, I was the same, I still like Taco Bell, she doesn't anymore, but whatever, I'm sad, it's okay. I don't know, like my wife at one point, after our first child said, you know those videos, she's holding her baby, you know those videos,

Of like, a mom cat, that like adopts a duck, I think I would do that, because I think I just love, all children now, like there's just something in me, that makes me like all, like I would just adopt anything, right now, in this moment, she's past that, she likes our kids, she's not adopting ducks, but, there's like, she just knew what she was doing, and there was so much of like, I don't, I've never, I don't know what I'm doing, so I think what happens often, is husbands, fathers,

Begin to just slowly, step back, and very early on, begin the practice of, I'm deferring to you, and so that grows, into, ah, moms kind of tend to the kids, moms are in charge of parenting, what do you think's best, how do you think this ought to go, and what he's specifically saying, in Ephesians is, no dads, you're supposed to be in on that, because ultimately, the weight of the family, and the flourishing of the family, is going to be on your shoulders, and so you have to be involved, in the parenting, it's not outsourced, not to say that moms,

Aren't good, it just means that fathers, are supposed to be active, present, and leading, um, fatherhood statistics, this was, I was looking at some of this earlier, but fatherhood statistics, surpass any other factor, when it comes to negative statistics, in life, so having a father present, or not having a father present, surpasses race, surpasses wealth level, surpasses economic class, surpasses poverty, or not poverty, whether your father was there, it matters immensely, and so fathers are supposed, to be active and present,

In raising their children, so then he says, fathers, do not provoke, your children to anger, but bring them up, in the discipline and instruction, of the Lord, okay so, I think this means, one specific thing, and then like, something that grows out of that, like a big hole, so do not provoke, your children to anger, I think it's one of the specific reasons, why he says fathers don't do this, is because he's talking about, overall how to think about parenting, but I also think, this issue is specific to fathers, so, for some reason,

And I don't know why, I care deeply about my children, but I want to provoke him, he is three, and I consistently want to provoke him, I don't know, he'll ask, where's my blanket, and my wife wants to say, it's in the dryer, and I want to say, oh I carried it out in the backyard, and the falcon swooned by, and grabbed it, and flew off towards the sunset, and I could just barely hear, as he was getting away, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, I don't know why that's in me, but that is how I want to respond to him, like all the time, and so here's what happens, fathers for some reason, seem to want to torment their children,

But now you're in a big problem, have you seen those videos, the Jimmy Kimmel, I ate your candy videos, have you seen those, they're hilarious, and you're not supposed to do it, what they would do, is the videos, Jimmy Kimmel, he's on late at night, I've seen him on the internet, I'm asleep, remember, he tells parents, after Halloween, when your kids go to sleep, and they wake up, empty out all their stuff, open up the wrappers, just kind of say, hey we ate all your candy, film them, and see how it goes,

And it's really funny, because children lose their minds, or meltdown, or whatever, and it's funny, but not if it's your kid, and not if you're responsible, for raising them, to honor their parents, and to live in a healthy situation, because, if I provoke my son, which I do, instinctively, for some reason, and then he responds poorly, now I'm in a bad spot, because the truth is, my son ought to, if I tell him, I ate all of your Halloween candy, go, yes sir, like that's an appropriate,

Honoring response, I hope you enjoyed it, like it's a messed up situation, but he's supposed to, he can't throw a fit, he can't tell me, I'm a terrible person, he can't yell at me, and if he does, if he says, well I hate you, and I suddenly am now, in a weird spot, where it's like a no, under no circumstance, should he ever yell that at me, but also, I made up a circumstance, that pressured, like made it harder for him, to respond appropriately, and here's what happens, I think that what grows out of this, is a whole form of parenting,

Which is, parenting by provocation, and I think mothers and fathers do this, which is that, in order to get you to behave, the way I want you to, I stand on the back end, of your behavior, and I provoke you, I chide, I mock, in order to get you, in the right zone, I'll give you an example of this, I'm going to talk about my dad, a good bit, because I think he did some things, really well, but I want to give you an example, of parenting by provocation, this wasn't his main form of parenting, but he did do it some, he's very good at it, I got in trouble in middle school,

For talking too much in class, and they sent home a little thing, and I had to take it, and my parents had to sign it, because apparently, I think I'm funny, and that people should hear, what I have to say, so then, I told my dad, and he was like, oh, you can't, you can't be quiet in class, well I can, apparently not, says here, they told you to be quiet, but you weren't, well I, but I can, no you can't, no, you're cute,

You're chatty, you're a Kathy chatty doll, and yes, my whole life, he said it backwards, I didn't even grow up, in the era of these dolls, but they are most assuredly, chatty Kathy dolls, not Kathy chatty dolls, he said, you're a little Kathy chatty doll, said I'm not a Kathy chatty, yeah you are, say it, sir, say I'm a Kathy chatty doll, say it, and that meant, this was going to get worse, if I didn't, so I have, stared my dad straight in the face, and said,

I'm a Kathy chatty doll, and he said, handed me the slip, walked away, I didn't bring one of those home again, I don't think I got them again, now, what he did, was provoke me, to anger, he provoked me, to correct behavior, and you absolutely can do this, and this can be your main form of parenting, they, I saw a thing, where a guy took some coaches, and he was just trying to prove to them, that this is how this works, he took some coaches, who had coached basketball, and he said, I want you to pretend, that a child just made a terrible shot,

And I want you to come up with the, most hilarious, mean things that you can say to them, and he said, this practice, it was across a bunch of coaches, in a whole region, and they were great at it, they knew how to belittle 12 year olds, like nobody's business, like they had the most creative, it was, he said it was hilarious, and great, and then he said, okay, now, I want you to pretend, that a child just missed a shot, and I want you to say something encouraging, and the room was like, he said he got like one feeble, nice try, get it next time,

And his point was, it's a lot easier, to be on the other side of things, than it is to be on the front side of things, and so what Paul says here, he says, do not provoke your children to wrath, but, so in contrast to that, but, bring them up, in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, that phrase bring them up, means, nurture, it's the same, the same Greek word that was in verse 29, when it says that you love and nurture your body, so what it's saying is, don't be on the back end, just provoking, get on the front end, and have a picture for what they ought to look like, that you're bringing them along,

That you have something in mind, that they're supposed to turn into, that if you have sons, you have a picture of biblical masculinity, that you are molding them into, that if you have daughters, you have a picture of biblical femininity, that you are building them up into, that you are walking them along into, it is so easy as a parent, to parent based off of today, off of how I'm feeling, what's going on, whether or not you're annoying me, whether or not I'm okay with this behavior, it's easy to parent based off of, I just want us to have a nice dinner, so I'm going to try to appease this child, I'm going to try to do what you want, so that you'll just calm down, but the problem is, that doesn't build up, it's also easy to belittle, it's also easy to name call,

It's also easy to, and that doesn't build up, the truth is, if you belittle, or you nurture, you can get some of the same behaviors, but you're building into your child, something completely different, that you can get your child, to not talk, to not misbehave, to not by belittling, by chiding, by aggression, but you can also get it, by having a front end picture of, and my dad was great at that, he would consistently tie, current behavior, to future us, for example, you'd be scared, kind of freaking out about, having to get on a roller coaster,

And you're like, I just, I just, I just don't think I can do it, my dad would look at you, and be like, boy you better straighten up, because you're acting silly, and you need to get in control, of your emotions, he said because one day, you're going to be 40, and you're going to hear, glass shatter in your house, in the middle of the night, and it's going to be go time, because you've got two children, and a wife, that you've got to save, and you can't let your emotions, rule the day, you've got work to do, and suddenly, my father had tied,

Riding a roller coaster, to protecting my family, when I'm 40, and I'm 12, and I'm like, my kids ain't going to die, and I locked it up, and I got on a roller coaster, and I rode with him, and all I was doing, was proving, that if my house caught on fire, I wasn't going to hyperventilate, and he did that all the time, he tied work to the future, he tied who you were going to be, toughness, he tied caring for somebody, he tied everything, was not just this moment, but where we were going, that in some ways, if you think about like a trellis, and a vine,

I was a vine, and he was consistently telling me, where the trellis was headed, and it makes an extreme difference, and Paul is saying, don't just be doing provocation, but bring them up, take them somewhere, have a picture in your mind, of what you're building, and begin building it, that's for fathers, and mothers, and some of y'all need to sit down, and have a discussion, about where are we taking this child, what are they going to look like, also, in the, the weight, of the flourishing, of the family, being placed on the father, I want you to understand,

Many of us have, are young, just having children, some of us, you have older children, you're still walking through this, fathers, you have to lead here, you were designed differently, than your wife, and you are meant, to be engaged here, and you are meant, to be active here, one of the things, that I have found, and this is particular, to my wife and I, and this may not apply, across the board, but this is an example, of what I'm talking about, my wife, is in the moment,

With our child, all the time, I'm not always, in the moment, with our child, she's in the moment, one of the things, I am better suited for, is being further ahead, in where we're going, she'll consistently say, he's three, it's okay for him, to act that way, and I will respond, it certainly is, but not when he's four, and if we don't begin, working that direction, he'll be doing it, when he's four, so this amount of, there are times, where you're going,

To disagree, and the idea, of wives submitting, to husbands, plays a role here, in how things work, and how things work out, and so that your wife, absolutely understands, things you don't understand, and knows things, about your child, you don't know, and you would be a fool, to just blast into this, but you are also a fool, to back out of it, and to abdicate your role, because one day, you will stand accountable, before the Lord, in how you raised your family, and that's going to be, really tough,

It's about to get tougher, in some of the stuff, that Paul says, and let's keep moving, oh, you're bringing them up, towards a goal, we have a current, cultural climate, of let your kids, figure out who they're going to be, and that is stupid, do not let them do that, Proverbs 22, 15 says this, is it 22, 15? Yeah, folly is bound up, in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline, drives it far from them, we're going to talk about, the rod of discipline,

In a second, but I just want you to see, that folly is bound up, in the heart of your child, folly is foolishness, your child, the Lord loves them, you love them, they are a fool, go back and look, at pictures of you, from middle school, put one on your refrigerator, remind yourself, that child, did not need to make, all the big life decisions, I needed my parents, telling me stuff, that I didn't want to hear, and your job as a parent, is to parent, God gave your children, parents on purpose,

There is a reason why, in the wild, those little lizards, can run just as fast, as anything, right when they're born, and there's a reason, why your child, can't do anything, for a long time, because God intended, for you to be there, helping, guiding, leading, training, and driving folly, away from them, alright so Paul says, bring them up, in, now he's going to tell us, what we're bringing them up in, so we're bringing them up,

We're nurturing them, we have a goal, he's bringing them up in, the discipline, and the instruction, of the Lord, so we're going to take, all those phrases separately, the discipline, and instruction of the Lord, so discipline means, that in the goal, that you have set, you have boundaries, that are not crossable, that you have fences up, sometimes I feel like, that's all I'm doing, with my three year old, I'm just a fence, and he can run into me, all day long, and at some point, he'll realize,

There's a fence here, and when I was, one of the movies, that was my first movies, I saw in theater, and it really had an impact on me, was Jurassic Park, and in Jurassic Park, they're talking about, how smart the velociraptors are, and the little guy, who's talking about it goes, he says they're testing the fences, to see if there's a weak spot, and some of you feel like, we gave birth to a velociraptor, because all it is doing, is testing the fences, to see if there's a weak spot, and the truth is, to discipline your children, you have to be disciplined, the fences can't move, the fence can't be here one day,

Because you're in a bad move, and over there one day, because you're not, y'all know Pavlov's dogs, they rang a bell, and the dogs would salivate, and it was a really cute test, that's not what they did, they didn't ring a bell, they shaved the spot, on the dog's arm, they put an electrode on it, and they electrocuted the dogs, and then fed them, just bell sounds nicer, they would take these dogs, they would walk them down the hall, they would set them up on a table, they would stick an electrode on their arm, they would shock them, and then they would feed them, so they were giving them, negative reinforcement, prior to getting to eat,

And then, what they started doing, was they had some dogs, that every time they shocked them, they fed them, and they had some dogs, that they would shock sometimes, and they would feed them, or not feed them, or whatever, so the dogs that got shocked, and fed, when they started heading down that hall, would run down the hall, would jump on the table, would hold their arm out, they didn't mind getting electrocuted, they knew they were about to get fed, I don't think they shocked the fool out of them, but I don't know, I wasn't there, the dogs that they shocked, all the time, and fed sometimes,

Lost their minds, they were psychotic, they wouldn't go down the hall, they were fighting, they couldn't handle, the rules changing, now, your child is smarter than a dog, after it's about two years old, all I'm saying is, there is something to, if you're going to discipline your children well, you have to be disciplined, so that the fences don't move all the time, so that the system doesn't change all the time, it also means that you and your spouse, have to be on the same page, because it can't be one way with one of you, and another way with another one of you, because that makes room for children, not knowing where they are, not knowing how things work, if you're going to count to three, when you get to three,

Something needs to happen, whatever you decide that thing is, and then it needs to happen, every time you hit three, if you count to three, and sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes you count to five, or if you count to three, and nothing ever happens, you just counted, like that's, I'm going to count again, go for it, that'll double the time, I'm doing the thing, you didn't want me to do, like I, you got to pick, you're the parent, you're going to stand, accountable for him, but discipline means, that you have to be disciplined,

And this has to stay, I want to show you, something though, specifically, specific to the idea of spanking, and to the idea of discipline, and these are in the Proverbs, I want to show you two things, Proverbs 13, 24, whoever spares the rod, hates his son, but he who loves him, is diligent to discipline him, we're told in Hebrews, that God disciplines his children, if he doesn't discipline, you don't belong to him, the Bible says, that you are a bastard, if you were not disciplined, by the Lord, so that you have children, it is your role,

As a parent, to discipline them, to figure out, what that looks like, in your household, and how that works, now the rod, in your household, may not be a rod, it may be time out, if it works, it may be removing things, that they appreciate, if it works, it just has to function, like a rod, the rod, the rod, in your household, may be a rod, or as Spencer said, one of his professors, called it a wisdom wand, there's driving folly away,

Via magic, on your rear end, here's the thing, discipline, comes from love, one of the reasons, why culture responds, so negatively, to spanking, to, is that we've seen, a lot of discipline, that didn't come from love, came from annoyance, it came from frustration, it came from anger, it came from a place of evil, it came from a place of sin, it came from a place of drunkenness, and that has no place, in parenting, and it has no place, in the church, but loving consistent discipline,

Does, and it is beautiful, and good for your child, and here's, another proverb, that helps paint this picture, do not withhold, discipline from a child, so you are wrong, to do that, you need to repent, if you are, if you strike him, with a rod, he will not die, I quoted this to my wife, as a joke, because whenever I would, spank my child, all she could see, was a 30 year old, hitting a 2 year old, even though I wasn't, hitting him that hard,

She was like, you are crazy, and it is like, I am not crazy, and then I would say, he is not going to die, the Bible says it, I was taking that out of context, that is not what that means, I do not think, that is what it means, I think what it means is, the purpose of striking, with a rod, is for life, it is a life giving rod, here is what I mean, my dad used to spank us, when we would play, in the road, he would sit us down, he would explain to us, why it was wrong, and then we would get,

A certain number of licks, with a belt, the reason he spanked us, while we played in the road, was because, we did not have the concept, an understanding, of what getting hit, by a vehicle was, but his belt was very real, and so one of the things, that happens at my house, is that we are consistently, creating negative consequences, because the negative consequences, are too slow to come, my son, hopped up off the couch, took his little sippy cup, walked over to me, said, get me some milk, and threw it at me, walked back over,

Hop back up on the couch, now, parenting is not about, what he does, parenting is about, what I do, so I threw it back, he said, get your own milk, I didn't, I took a deep breath, so that I wouldn't, here's the thing, I want him to have milk, I want him to drink milk, all the time, especially if he wants milk, but he can't act like that, but the consequences, for him are delayed, because I can go get him milk, and all he has learned, is negative behavior, gets a positive result,

Same with like, when he melts down, and cries over something, if he starts crying, all the fun in the world, ceases to exist, we have removed everything good, if you throw a fit, if you whine, nothing good happens, because if he cries, and then we give him a good thing, all we have taught him, is the way to be happy, is to cry, and that's nonsense, and that's a terrible thing, to learn, and your children, will turn into terrorists, and they'll continue it, 12 year olds do this, they learn this, when they're three,

They terrorize you, at a dinner table, so you'll appease them, because you just want to have, a nice night out, when really you should spend, the time outside, disciplining your child, you just do whatever, they want you to do, and then they learn, so parenting, disciplining is, creating negative results, because the real negative results, are too far coming, here's the real negative result, if my son can throw, a milk bottle at me, and I have to go get him milk, I begin to not like my son, my wife begins to not like our son, she can't take him to Walmart, we can't do anything fun with him,

Because he ruins everything, and so now, our child is in a situation, where we actually kind of dislike him, we don't want to be around him, and that is not his fault, that's our fault, he goes to school, he can't sit still, he can't be quiet, he can't control himself, and that's not his fault, that's our fault, he had folly, bound up in his heart, and we refused to drive it away, because we were being unloving, he goes to middle school, he goes to high school, he can't now, now when he grows up, he can't keep a job, he doesn't know how to handle relationships, and it began,

Because he had a father and mother, that refused to make him honor them, and refused to love him well enough, to discipline him, and that's ridiculous, we're called to it, but the negative effects, of poor behavior, and a small child, are too far in coming, and so you begin to make, the negative effects immediate, so that they'll learn, a belt is real, a time out is real, whatever, all removal of good happy things, is real, and that's because, his action is going to lead, to the removal of all good happy things, he just doesn't know it, and so I have to play act it with him, and that's,

I'm giving him life, that's discipline, that's the biblical picture of it, all right, then he says, bring them up, so we're moving them in a direction, we have a picture, of what we want, out of a son, we have a picture, of what we want, out of a daughter, we have a picture, of what a well-grown, well-adjusted adult looks like, if you didn't see that, in your parents, if you didn't see it, go talk to people, who've parented well, go ask them questions, go look at the people, who you think are well-adjusted,

Who work hard, who do things, ask them questions, how did you learn, begin to paint a picture, you got a place you're taking them, and we're doing this, in discipline, and instruction, instruction here, the word brings to mind, kind of head training, so you're giving them information, you're explaining things to them, you're walking them through, you're teaching them, not only what to think, but also how to think, I can remember, telling my dad stories, about, hey a buddy of mine, he was at his uncle's house, and I would tell him,

This big long story, and my dad would go, that didn't happen, no it did, he said he saw it, he didn't see that, your friend lied to you, and he was consistently, training me, on how to think, how to gauge things, he would make me come sit, and listen, and look at something, he would teach me, how to think, and that's one of the things, that instruction means, is that you're, not just teaching them, what to think, but you're also, training their brains, you have a picture,

Of where you're growing, and you're training them, and then it says, discipline and instruction, of the Lord, we're going to spend, the rest of our time there, one of the things, this means is parents, your role, with your children, is to discipline, and train them, in the Lord, in Christ, and what it looks like, to follow Jesus, this is a letter, written to the church, and it places parenting, on the parents, not the church, it's one of the reasons, why we are very careful,

With how we do things, with children, with students, because it, parenting doesn't get, outsourced to the church, it doesn't belong to us, it belongs to the parents, now where parenting, is lacking, and where students, don't have parents, that love Jesus, we try to step in, we try to walk with them, in that, it's one of the reasons, why we put them, in community groups, because we think, that's better, than just putting them, around peers, we put them around,

Like if you don't know Jesus, if your parents don't know Jesus, we're going to stick you, in a group, okay, you're 15, you're going to get, have a lot of parents, that love Jesus, they're going to begin, to pour into you, they're going to begin, to take you places, begin to try to train you, and instruct you, and discipline you, and walk with you, through life, but if you have parents, and if you are parents, it isn't the church's role, to raise your children, in the Lord, it is your role,

To raise your children, in the Lord, this is an atmosphere, in which this takes place, Deuteronomy, when it's training parents, how to teach their children, it says do it when you wake up, do it when you walk around, do it when you're sitting at the table, do it before you go to bed, that this is how, all of life belongs to Jesus, and so you begin to train, in all of life, how to think, that when your child comes to you, and says how do we think about money, that you so know the Lord, and you so know the Bible, that you go, here's why we think about that way, here's why we approach money that way, that you so know the truth,

Of the gospel, that when they say why, why do we as Christians, say we're not supposed to have sex, before we're married, you say well here's why, it's not just a rule, but you have a big picture, of why it's beautiful, and why it's good, that you know the Lord well, so that you can do this well, here's the other thing, you need to understand as parents, that you are a stand in for God, with your children, you're a stand in for God, some of you understand this so clearly, because when you became a Christian, it was so difficult to relate to God, because he calls himself a father, and your father was terrible, so you feel like God is distant, you feel like God only cares about you,

If you're successful, you feel like God is consistently disappointed in you, you feel like God is waiting, to strike you down, waiting for you to mess up, and that's because your father, your parents painted a very poor picture, but parents, you get to paint a really beautiful picture, so one of the things that happens, is you raise your children in discipline, when it says of the Lord, do you know how much joy is in the Lord, do you know how much time at your house, needs to be spent laughing, and playing, and celebrating, do you know how much joy is in the house of the Lord, that you're painting a picture, for what God looks like, which means, he's terrible, when you're in sin, he has wrath for sin,

But he also has grace, and love for repentance, and there's joy in his house, that when you're outside of his will, it's awful, but when you're under his roof, it's beautiful, and his parents, we're getting to paint that picture, that the household is a household, that you actually get to walk your children down the aisle, and at some point hand them off to God, and that's seamless, because they already have a good picture, of what he's like, but you have to have a good picture, of what he's like, and you have to walk that out, that my son should be afraid of me, in a healthy way, and that my son also should think, I'm the most fun person, that has ever existed, and that's how I ought to think about God,

And you get to be a stand in for that, specifically parents, one last thing I want to point out, for many of you, you're just beginning this, for many of you, you're already on the other side of it, there's a good bit of us in the middle of it, and you are failing, in so many ways, I am failing in so many ways, I can't tell you how many conversations, I have with my wife, where I put my son to bed, and I come back in, and she's like, you did not handle that right, and I'm like, you're telling me, he just got going, I was just, I went for it, and that was awful, what do we need to do next time,

He threw me a curve ball, I wasn't ready for it, I dodged it, I wasn't ready for it, you're going to fail, but Jesus saves sinners, and he saves failures, and when you've taken your fifth trip, up to the school in five weeks, to talk to a teacher again, and when you worked, and worked, and worked, and worked, and they still brought home F's, and when they've left, and you don't even know where they went, but prior to leaving, they said the most hurtful things, that anyone could possibly ever say to you, and you responded, with some of the most hurtful things, you've ever said to anybody, you get to repent,

And you get to trust, that Jesus saves sinners, that one day, you'll stand before him, and yes, you'll be held accountable, for your actions, and you'll be held accountable, for how your children, what you did with your children, but you'll also stand, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, that he paid for your sin, so that you can walk free, that's the hope of the gospel, and that as you lean into Jesus, you get to trust, that some of you right now, you look back on parenting, you have so much regret, and you just get to trust, that Jesus covers you, and pays for you, and brings you hope,

That you won't stand held accountable, for your own sin, but you'll get to walk in the freedom, that's offered to you, around this room, we need to repent, some of you are children, who are actively disobeying, or dishonoring your parents, and you need to repent, because you're in sin, but there's a lot of grace, for sinners who repent, maybe you need to call your parents, or have a conversation with them today, where you tell them you're wrong, you shouldn't have said those things, you shouldn't have acted that way, you need to change your attitude, that you get to trust, that Jesus redeems sinners, saves sinners, forgives sinners, some of you are parents,

Who need to repent, your fathers who have abdicated, your fathers who have just deferred, to your wife, even though you think she's wrong, because you feel like, she feels more comfortable, or she feels more adamantly about it, or you feel like, she makes it difficult, chapter three of the Bible, Adam says, but my wife, and God doesn't take it, as a legitimate excuse, we don't get to do that, we have to lead, some of you are wives, who are actively, not being, following the leadership, of your husband, or who have actively, abdicated from parenting well,

Or who have begun, treating your children, in a way that's just about today, that's just about your own happiness, that's not about theirs, we need to repent, but we run to a God, who has open arms, and an open house, and who loves us, the way a parent loves his children, and so when we show back up, he's not mad at us, and he's not ready to chastise us, he's ready to open the door, and start cooking a meal, and say sit down, I was waiting for you to come, because there's a lot of joy, in the house of the Lord, and there's a beautiful welcome, for sinners who repent, band's going to come back up, and we're going to sing,

And sing, but I would invite us all, to take a moment, to just pray, to reflect, to rest in the hope of the gospel, to run to Christ, in the midst of difficulty, let's pray, God we thank you for your grace, we thank you that you are, a good father who loves us, and redeems the picture, of so many messed up fathers, that we had, we thank you and praise you, for the good fathers and mothers, that we did have, and we pray that you would, bless this church, to be a place of, of good parenting, and we pray that you would, bless those who are still,

Dependent on their parents, to be obedient, as obedience to you, that you would help us all, to honor our parents well, because it trains us, in how to honor you, and how to live a life of joy, we thank you, and we praise you in Jesus name, amen. Amen. Amen.

Mill City 5/13/18 Mill City 5/13/18

Marriage and Singleness Q&A

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. I am an optimistic person. I try to tackle any given workday, like tomorrow is a workday for me, and I do real estate and also serve here. And I try to tackle as much as I can, so tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'm going to have this huge plan and I'm going to tackle getting my daughter to preschool.

I'm going to tackle writing contracts and doing stuff, and then I'm going to tackle preparing for sermons over the next couple of weeks. And I try to do all these things. My wife, she finds out about these plans regularly, and she just kind of smiles. Because she's like, you continuously bite off more than you can chew. And I do. And what's good to know is that I'm not the only one.

That Chet Phillips also does the same thing. That as we were planning this section of Ephesians months ago, we had planned that we're going to spend some time in marriage, and that we're going to have a Q&A that we're going to do, and we're going to tack that into one of the sermons, and it's going to be great. And then your questions started to come in. And we realized, oh, I don't think we're going to be able to just take 15 minutes to answer all these questions. I think that we're going to actually have to spend some more time doing this. So this morning is going to be a little bit different.

Typically, we'd open up the Bible. We'd read through a passage, and we'd preach from the text, and that's what we'd do. And we had planned originally for this Sunday to be kind of in line with Mother's Day, that we were going to have parenting starting Ephesians 6, and it was going to coincide with Mother's Day, and it's going to be awesome. And then once we saw kind of we were running out of space to do that, it's like we actually really need to take some time and address these questions. And they didn't line up so well. So sorry for Mother's Day that we couldn't have the Mother's Day sermon that we wanted.

You get to listen to questions and answers, which I'm sure you guys were gearing up for. So we're going to spend what's going on this morning. I'm going to quickly walk through where we've been in Ephesians, and then I'm going to answer one of the questions we have first. I'm going to teach you that because it's a little bit more nuanced. Sometimes it takes a little more time, a little more space, but ultimately this question that will come up first will kind of set the framework for how we answer the rest of these questions. And then once I work through that, I'm going to have Katie Freeman, who's one of our community group leaders, and Chet Phillips, one of our pastors, come up, and we're going to work through the rest of these questions.

I'm going to pray, and then we'll start. God, thank you for today. God, I pray that you would bless this time, that it would be beneficial, that as we walk through these, you would show us your will. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so summarizing where we've been, we've been in Ephesians for the last like six months, and we've been in this section of Ephesians 5 for over a month now, walking through the picture of marriage, and it's couched in the context of Ephesians.

In the first three chapters, Paul walks through the picture of the gospel, that God chose the church, that he came to redeem the church, that while we were dead in sin, he died for us and made us alive, that by grace we have been saved. And he extends this picture of the gospel for three chapters, then he pivots into chapter 4, and starts doing coaching and correction with the church, applying the gospel. Then we get to Ephesians 5, and we get to this section on marriage. And we see here, as Paul lays it out, that just as Jesus is the head of the church, the body, so the husband should be the head of his wife.

That he should lead, that he should sacrificially love. We walked through that a few weeks back. And that wives should respect and follow and submit to their husbands. And when this cycle of love and respect is happening, we are showing a beautiful picture of the gospel in marriage. So we spent some time walking through that.

And as we've been walking through that, we also walked through singleness last week, how God has, how our culture says you need someone to be complete. And we come in with the Bible and say, no, we walked through 1 Corinthians 7, on how you don't need someone else to be completed. You need Christ to be completed. And as we've been working through this, these questions came in. And one question in particular, which takes a little more time, was this. Why has the leadership chosen to espouse complementarianism over egalitarianism?

All right, a lot of big words there. So why have we chosen, as a church, we uphold the position of complementarianism? So why have we chosen that over egalitarianism? So these are two positions on gender roles in the church. Egalitarianism coming from the French word égal, which means equal. And what ultimately that position is advocating for is equality in roles, that wives could be the heads of their husbands and that women could ultimately be pastors and preach with authority.

That's kind of the overarching position of egalitarianism. And we come alongside as complementarians and say, that's not what the Bible teaches, that the Bible teaches that our roles are complementary. So I'll walk through that in a moment. But I want to say out the gate that there are Jesus-loving, Bible-believing Christians in both sides of this debate. One of my mentors for the past 10, 15 years, someone I love deeply, who is, he married my wife and I. He continually checks in on me.

He's a pastor in Houston. I became a Christian in a Methodist church, and he's a Methodist pastor now in Houston. I love this dude, and he loves me, and we don't agree on this. He comes from the egalitarian side, and I come from the complementarian side, and gender roles debate. But both of us love Jesus, and we love the mission of the church, and I pray that he would reach people in Houston.

But we differ on this. Now, there are two extremes that get pushed out of this that are not biblically based. And I'll have a slide that comes up that will show this. That on one end of the spectrum, when you push egalitarianism to its extreme, you get feminism, specifically Christian feminism. And when you push complementarianism to an extreme, you get patriarchy. And those two positions do not find a place in the Bible.

So let me tackle this first one, patriarchy. This is not necessarily the term for patriarchs in the Old Testament. That's not what it's going for. It's more of a term that has been used to describe that men rule in the house, that men rule in general over women. That's the position of patriarchy. And it comes from the idea that though Genesis 1 says that men and women are made in the image of God, they have taken that, and they say, No, actually, women are made in the image of men.

And men are made in the image of God. Therefore, any language about headship gets extended out of that logic. And what happens and what flows out of that is a ton of unhelpful teaching and really some abuse. And I kind of thought that this position had faded away a little bit, but I was reminded about a month or two ago in California, this family of 13 kids was rescued from a family. And the oldest was 27. She was like 90 pounds and had been systematically abused for all of her life based off of this guy's understanding of patriarchy in the Bible.

And that finds no weight in the Bible. That is out. You cannot be a consistent Christian and uphold that position. So that's one extreme. The next extreme on the other end of the spectrum is Christian feminism. At its core, feminism did some really awesome things.

In the 1800s, when the feminist movement started, the whole core of the position is equal rights for men and women. And the fact that women can vote, the fact that there has been a pushback against systematic sexual harassment and abuse in our culture is good. But man, where that has extended and what has been the overarching theme of feminism and what it is today has been extremely unhelpful. And if you look at it from a position of Christian feminism, what has happened is a response to patriarchy by saying, we're going to view the Bible skeptically. That if the Bible says things, we're going to question the Bible as a basis even for this debate.

So I studied at a college in a religion department that was primarily, it was from a Christian feminist position on gender roles. And they regularly would pray to Mother God. They would change the language of the Bible. They would take any passages that dealt with male leadership or headship and completely chuck them out. All of the Bible is filtered through the position of extreme feminism and not much comes out the other side. And I even have one.

I was one professor. I remember I opened a Bible and I was reading through the ESV, which is the version that we use. And she was yelling at me right in the face that we should never use that version because of how it translates the Bible. When in fact, it's one of the most helpful English translations that we have. And eventually she went to the academic department and got that version banned from our religion department. And that's kind of the flow of Christian feminism.

Everything gets filtered through the extreme position of feminism that is today. And those two extremes, if you look at them, they don't consistently follow the teachings of the Bible. So those two are extremes. I want to just take a moment to walk through the two positions that can be held in the Bible and by Bible-believing Christians. The first position is egalitarianism. Egalitarianism pushes for equal roles for men and women, specifically that wives can be the heads of their husbands and that women can preach with authority in the local church.

That is the push of egalitarianism. And some of what egalitarianism has pointed out has been really beautiful and good. Like the fact that the past hundred years has been a push to say, look at the ferocious, strong women in the Bible who have character and were forces of good. Like they point out Deborah from the Old Testament. They point out Ruth. They point out Mary, mother of Jesus.

And we're like, yeah, we need that correction. Sometimes we focus on some of the male leaders in the Bible and we say, wow, like no, we absolutely should focus on their character, on who they were. So egalitarianism has pointed out some very helpful things over the years. But I want to walk through the root of their argument and how they approach the Bible. Egalitarians approach the Bible from the perspective that male headship, what we've talked about the last month, is rooted in the fall. It's rooted in sin that came into the world in Genesis 3.

And that the rest of the Bible, any type of male headship, is a result of fallenness that happened at the fall. So they go through the Old Testament and really the New Testament, there's one verse that their position is hung on very strongly that they fight for. And it comes out of Galatians 3, verse 28, which says, And what they're saying is, is because of Jesus and because of this verse that gender has been flattened. There's no Jew, there's no Greek, that all of us have the same roles and opportunities in marriage and in the church. And that has been used as the logic for much of egalitarianism today.

Now, before I move on to complementarianism and explain that position and why we hold it, I want to see that verse in its context because that really is the linchpin for much of their arguments. If you look at verse 25, a few verses back, it says, But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's no male and female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus. So when you look at this, what is actually happening here is that faith is what's being upheld here.

And what argument that Paul is making is that in faith, that in Christ, in your redemption that Jesus has done for you, none of you are better than the other. That was a huge problem in the New Testament church that Jews thought they were better than Gentiles, that Gentiles are saying, no, we're better, and that male and female, that there was this argument going, and Paul comes in and says, no, none of you are better, each of you are equally valued because you are one in Christ. So it's not a statement of rule, it's a statement of value. That we are all equally one and valued in Christ. Which brings us to the last position, the position that we hold as a church, which is complementarianism.

That is a big way of saying that men in the Bible were created to lead in marriage, and that men were also created to lead in the church as pastors, and that wives have complementary roles to husbands, and that women have complementary roles to men in the church. And our argument for that starts with male headship and male leadership being rooted not in the fall, but actually being rooted in creation. That when you go back to the garden, in Genesis 1 and 2, before the fall, you're going to see that Adam was created first. That creation order matters. And we're going to see that show up again later in the New Testament.

We see that in the garden, God holds Adam responsible for what happens at the fall. And then we see that before the fall happens, that Eve is called Adam's helper, which is the Hebrew word for hezer. That these were pre-fall realities, a part of the fabric of God's creation, that men were created to lead. And we see that flow throughout the rest of the Old Testament, that the tribal leaders were men, that the priests were men. And usually about that time, when egalitarians, when they hear this, they'll say, but what about women like Deborah? And I'll say, absolutely.

We look at a figure like Deborah in the book of Judges. She was a political leader at the time that stepped up in a time of need when men were failing and helped lead the nation of Israel in a vital period of time, which is why you'll never hear a stay from the sage, don't ever vote for a woman. We're not going to say that because the Bible doesn't hold that position. In the time where men are failing, absolutely, women can be political leaders that help lead, but that's not what happens in the book of Judges. She's not a spiritual leader. And more importantly, the book of Judges and the whole point of the book of Judges is that this is not the way it's supposed to be, that the whole nation of Israel, each judge that came in was failing over and over again.

It's not a picture that we go to. And then when you move to the New Testament, one question that I've asked our egalitarian brothers and sisters in Christ, I've asked if Jesus was so counter-cultural, if he was so revolutionary, and he was, I mean, he stared down the religious leaders like he flipped the whole system on its head. And if this is who Jesus was, then why did he choose 12 men to lead the church as disciples? 11 of whom, and another man who was appointed would become the apostles in the church. And I've never gotten a good answer for that. That Jesus, who is setting up his church, who is flipping the system on its head, he chose men to be the ones who lead.

And then the flowing out of that in the New Testament is that men would lead as pastors. And when we flip to 1 Timothy 2, you look at 1 Timothy 2, Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3, these lay out how men are called as pastors. And then you look at 1 Timothy 2, and it says this, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. And I, just being honest, I used to be an egalitarian because I became a Christian in the Methodist church. And when I would hear people quote this passage, my go-to response was, no, you don't understand.

Like, this is culturally different. That the women in the church back then weren't educated. And that's why Paul is putting this there. And I used to hang so much of my arguments on the cultural realities at the time until finally someone said, yeah, but what about verse 13? When he gives the logic for why he says this, when he says, for Adam was formed first, then Eve. There are absolutely cultural elements happening here.

But that's not what Paul's arguing. He's arguing out of creation order. This is why he's designed men to be pastors. Similar things happen when we look at Ephesians 5 and how we've spent time in that. That the order that he has had, that he's established in marriage that we've walked through is actually rooted in something that's eternal. It's rooted in the gospel.

And that's unchanging. And you go to 1 Corinthians 11, 3, which is another passage on headship. And it says, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God. And the logic that's being played out there is in the same way that the Father is the head of the Trinity. He's the head of Jesus the Son the same way husbands are the heads of their wives. And nobody is going to make the argument from a Christian standpoint that the Father is better than the Son, that Jesus isn't equal to God in value.

If you did, you'd be a heretic. That's heresy that's been condemned for over 1,500 years in the church. But we would say, no, absolutely not. They are equal in value in the same way husbands and wives are equal in value. But we have different roles.

So we take cultural considerations in the New Testament seriously. And we look at them and we look at history and we try to figure out what's going on. But we also know that our truth is rooted in eternal patterns that go back to creation order, that go back to the gospel, that go back to our Trinitarian God. And that is why we as a church we uphold the position of complementarianism. And when we do that and the culture hears that, the culture is going to rage. We're going to be called everything in the book.

We're going to be called backward, archaic, chauvinistic, everything down the line. And I get it. I understand where they're coming from. But we don't let culture dictate our positions as a church. We let the Bible speak for itself. And this is what we think the Bible consistently teaches from Old Testament to New.

And as a church, this is what we believe. But we also, this means we don't value the opinions and the wisdom of women. That's why we as a church we have deacons that are women in our church. We see deacons in the New Testament that are women. Deacon is just the word diakonos in Greek which means servant. We have women who are lead servants who are crushing it in our church.

That's why as a teaching team there are three of us. There's Chet, Bianca McDowell, and myself. And when we craft sermons together, I love having Bianca in the room because she challenges me and Chet. She helps us see the Bible from a different perspective and she speaks wisdom into what happens up here. Over and over again, we are reaching out to women in our church because of the wisdom and the strength they provide. But we order our church in the way that the Bible orders it and that's what we try to follow as a church.

So that is a long way of answering that question but that's going to give you a framework a little bit for the rest of the questions that we have today. I'm going to have Katie and Chet come up and we're going to finish our Q&A. And we've got about eight more questions and I appreciate all of you that sent questions in that were challenging. We spent the last three weeks talking through them, opening up the Bible, praying, debating the works. So with that in mind, let's transition.

I want to tag something real quick on what he was just talking about. I think one of the, we believe in complementarianism. I think one of the things that we've done though before as a church and I know I've done this some is say the word complementarianism and lean patriarchy because it's cleaner. It's easier to draw hard lines than it is to be in the middle of trying to figure out. So like even with Bianca McDowell on teaching team, that Timothy passage says I don't allow women to have authority or teach men but she's in there.

You know, it's like that's a less clean line but we actually want to lean more into the, no, we value women. We value their opinion. We value what God's poured into them and the help that they have and so I just know for us sometimes we've gotten that wrong. We've leaned a little bit too far to a, it's just cleaner to do this when we really need to embrace and lean in. So there can be times where we mess that up one way or the other but we're trying to actively grow in it and walk out with the scriptures we think say on them.

So. Thanks. That's more of a personal confession. So hi, my name's Chad and I'm a sinner. Alright, so. Our first question.

As a wife, how do you submit to your husband and be his sister in Christ especially when dealing with sin? Katie, do you want to take that one? Sure. The first thing we're always going to do here as a church is to direct you towards prayer. We want to go into anything where we have to address sin with a prayerful spirit so I'm going to ask the Lord where's my sin in this? Where do I need to repent?

And that just sets me up with a heart of humility and then I pray over my husband's sin. I can pray that he will be receptive and want to hear that when I do speak to him. But the next thing is just how do I approach my husband in this? That's what I want to consider before I start that conversation and I like to compare it to somebody maybe I respect in my life. So maybe that's somebody, a coach, a teacher, a boss, somebody that I would say yeah, they're getting it right and I respect them and I care about them and so I have an issue I need to address with them.

How am I going to set that up? And so if I was going to do that, I think if it were someone I respected, I'd want to give them some prep. I want to let them know that we're going to have this talk. I want to kind of tell them I need to talk to them about something. I want to go in humble. I want to build up the positive things that I see and then bring in the tougher stuff and then do it in a very respectful and humble way.

And then once you've done that and if you can take that same approach with your husband, then you need to just take a little time to allow him to repent. I think we immediately as women sometimes want to see the results, see the change but this is a goal for the long term is that he's able to overcome this sin and so I think we want to give him time and then as we continue to check in and say, how's this going? Are we growing here? Are we fixing things? Is the Lord working? Then if there is a need, you can bring in some help from your group or from a pastor but let's not rush there.

I think sometimes as a female we can see our other female community group members as somebody we can confide in and talk to but very quickly it can switch over to a little bit of husband bashing and we never want to go there. We always want to build our husbands up and be proud of who they are and put them in that position of respect and so kind of two approaches real quick here when we're talking with our community groups. The first one is females. When you're talking to other females about how to approach sin with your husband don't flaunt his sin. Talk to them and say here's my heart here's where I'm struggling can you can you help me to love my husband and have an appropriate view of his sin?

You don't even have to tell him what the sin is. And so and then the other one is instead of you telling your community group leader about your husband's sin direct him there. Let him go do that. Let him have that ownership. Shows respect. Shows you admire him and love him and hopefully over time with the Holy Spirit in your husband you can trust the Lord to change that in him.

What the sin is. And so and then the other one is instead of you telling your community group leader about your husband's sin direct him there. Let him go do that. Let him have that ownership. Shows respect. Shows you admire him and love him and hopefully over time with the Holy Spirit in your husband you can trust the Lord to change that in him. Thank you. I just want to add that ideally you can't go to your husband and address sin and regardless of your attitude

He's receptive wants to own his own sin wants to be repentant. 1 Peter 3 says what do you kind of speaks into what do you do when he doesn't obey like you don't want to hear it so you go to your husband and you say hey I think you're wrong here and he says the equivalent of well just shut your mouth and leave me alone and that's extremely difficult but Peter says that you win him over more with a gracious attitude a walking through that in the midst of that difficult with kindness with gentleness

Rather than continually trying to be like no I'm going to fix you I'm going to make you change and that's extremely difficult and that's where we would say what Katie was saying which is like at that point start leaning into church families start having other people praying with you start if they're a part of our our church family your husband's in a group or whatever then we can start following up with some church discipline and some different things like that to approach it with them but that can be a very difficult situation

Alright next question is there a line limit to your desire to be married if so what is it and why does it exist ok so we talked about singleness last week and basically just said that kind of do you have the desire do you not have the desire one of the things Paul says is that if you're burning with desire and so I would say that yes there is a line and a limit like you just too much but it's got to be past burning

Because the Bible says like that's that's kind of an ok zone so what I would say is you can desire marriage to a burning desire level like it can be a deep seated like I really want to get married I really feel this I have urges or whatever like I mean however you would put it so there is room for that the only thing that we would add in on that is just we are always careful to not allow something to become idolatrous which just means

It means more to us than Jesus does that we are elevating it to I have to have this to be ok I have to have this to feel loved I have to have this to be saved I have to like we've elevated it to save your position and so one of the tests for that if you're sitting there going like I really desire this and I have some questions is like ok are you willing to sin to get it I so badly want a husband

That I'll just move in with a guy I so badly want a wife that everything else is on the table like that amount of like well you've crossed the line because you've elevated it above Christ and so that would be our question was like no you can absolutely desire it you can absolutely burn with desire but don't allow it to become more valuable to you than Christ and with

Just in general line and limit questions whether it's this or another it takes a ton of leaning into the Holy Spirit of pursuing wisdom and prayerfully doing both of those so just keep that in mind as you're pursuing that as you're thinking through that and processing that next question is when is it ok to not submit as a wife especially if your

Husband is expecting you to follow him and not what the Bible says Katie can you take that when I read this question it was very clear to me that this is a woman who does want to submit to her husband and she's having trouble because he's asking her to sin to do that and so I'm sorry I know that these guys are sorry that you're

In that position we do think the Bible speaks to it and we want to support you in that so again we're going to immediately point you to prayer over it but then if you have specific questions over whether something is ok for you to partake in with your husband and you can't come to that on your own you have people who want to support you in that

Group leaders pastors other Christian believers within our church family so ask for help if you need it and don't be ashamed but then I want to point you to a biblical story that some of you may be familiar with the story of Ananias and Sapphira and basically this is a couple who sells a field they make some money and Ananias goes to take the money to the disciples feet

And when he does this he lies about how much he made and he's immediately struck dead and so then Sapphira comes in a little later and she is asked how much the field was sold for and she also lies and is immediately struck dead so that's just a small example of women we are held accountable to our sin

In these situations and so as Christians we need to know how to handle that and so there's a couple things that I want us to be aware of as a Christian we are called to love and respect and honor our husbands and that's what we want him to know especially if it's a non-believing spouse we want them to know that we are called to that and that's our passion

And our heart we also want them to know that we love Jesus and we do not want to sin and so we want to frame it that we want to follow you we don't want to sin and so ultimately in this situation I want women to think about how can I say yes to my husband right now maybe he's asking me to lie maybe he's asking me to watch porn maybe he's asking me

To cheat on our taxes and you can't say yes to those things and I think most of us know that but we want to know what can we do talk with your husband if he's scared for you to talk about him just losing his job that's real he may ask you to lie and tell people that he didn't lose his job and though you can't do that say what can I do in this situation that both honors God and honors you

And y'all come to a conclusion that unifies you brings you together this doesn't have to be destructive and so just praying that praying over what that can be how can you say yes to your husband and love him well in these challenging situations and we're here to help again group leaders and pastors want to walk with you through that if it's a struggle that's good next question

Outside of unfaithfulness is divorce ever okay okay so church family real quick we have a handful and a few more following this of questions about divorce and remarriage and even as we continue to go and even what we've already talked about this is extremely painful difficult personal stuff and so we want to start by saying

We want to answer these questions and we want to answer them biblically we want to talk to you so if you're walking through some of the situations that Katie was just talking about or some of the situations we're going to cover we want to talk with you we want to open the Bible with you we want to

Talk about your personal situation we want to talk we don't want it to just be like well here's what the Bible says and that be a hammer rather than that being what the Bible intends it to be which is a grace for us and so I want to say before we begin to answer some of these questions

That's our hope is that if you are actually walking through some of these scenarios these situations have more questions don't just leave frustrated let's talk and be frustrated together and so that's our request and if I have to say this I am approachable you can talk to me I know my face says otherwise on a regular basis after talking to me people will say hey this wasn't as bad

As I thought it was going to be and I've learned to just appreciate that and not be offended and so I just want to always tell them go tell other people that you can come talk to me but you can talk to me if you don't want to talk to me you can talk to Spencer or Raz or Matt and so you know you can talk to Spencer and Matt and Raz and I will hang out and y'all can come talk to us if you

Want to outside of unfaithfulness is divorce ever okay okay so the question is assuming automatically that in unfaithfulness divorce is okay and that is a reference they're referring to Matthew 5 or Matthew 19 I'm going to go to Matthew 19 I want to read some of this the overall weight of scripture towards marriage is that you should stay married if you are married that divorce is not okay

So I actually want to read this passage it says and the Pharisees came up to him this is Matthew 19 starting verse 3 the Pharisees came up to him and they tested him by asking is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause now that any cause is actually a phrase they're quoting from Deuteronomy 24 and we know historically there was a big debate in the Jewish in the Jewish approach to this

And one school of thought said it was kind of limited and another school of thought said any cause from Deuteronomy 24 meant she burnt your toast you found a lady that was more attractive I mean it's super like if you read the list it's aggressive at how much you could just divorce a woman for really no reason whatsoever similar to how we approach stuff today is it lawful

To divorce to any wife for any cause and he answered Jesus answered have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh what therefore God has joined

Together let not man separate so his response is a he goes to the Genesis and just says no they shouldn't get a divorce should stay together God put them together he brought them together don't let anybody tear that up and then they said why then

Did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away and he said to them because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it was not so and I say to you whoever divorces his wife and this is

The phrase that they're getting the except for sexual immorality a lot of translations will say marital unfaithfulness and marries another commits adultery so before we get into that clause I want to say this the Bible upholds a beautiful picture of marriage that a man

And a woman would cling together and it's actually the best bet for a good marriage is that you're not allowed to leave if both husband and wife go in with a this is our marriage and we're going to have to make it good it's the best bet

For a good marriage it's the best bet for a beautiful marriage is that if both of you were in saying there's no way out so if we're going to have a good marriage this is our shot at it whenever there's the back

Doors open and you get to look over your shoulder and get to say well if this one doesn't work out if this doesn't it leads to greater conflict greater difficulty also the Bible holds up that marriage is based off of Christ's

Love for the church it gives us all these beautiful pictures and calls us to so much joy and goodness in it and the Bible steps in it gives so much weight and rights to females that it's crazy given the

Context it was written in it's actually as if God is above culture and has a plan for how men and women should interact with one another and doesn't just let culture decide how that works and it's great

So that when in culture you'll notice can a husband divorce his wife do you know how wives were allowed to divorce their husbands they weren't your husband was terrible you have no real legal right you can run away but you can get yourself in trouble for that but husbands

Could just write a certificate and send you out and so Jesus steps in and says no don't but he does have this phrase except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery so that phrase except he uses the word adultery and he uses the word sexual immorality which is

Pornea and so that's what they're quoting in the case of unfaithfulness and so we would read this I read this and the majority opinion is even the majority opinion among our elders but not all of us opinion is that in the case of sexual immorality sexual sin that you can get a divorce and you can

Remarry because if you take the text as it's written except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery so the assumption would be if it were for sexual immorality when you married another you would not be committing adultery so Jesus holds up this picture for if

You get a divorce for any other reason than this then the question becomes what is sexual immorality what does that word mean it's a broad word that includes incest it includes bestiality it includes it's a whole list of things that

Aren't allowed in the Old Testament it includes fornication prior to marriage it includes and so for their culture when you were getting married to someone you had been betrothed since a young age they were supposed to be a virgin both of

You were and there was this idea that if you got married and soon found wait this person isn't a virgin that would be grounds that's porneia that's why it extends out and our culture is a little bit different so if

Some of y'all just said oh so I can get out if I just know that this person slept around in high school it's like that's not really what it's going for and the great weight of scripture Matthew 10

Luke 16 Matthew 5 1 Corinthians 7 the great weight of scripture is no you don't want to get a divorce you want to make it work you want to forgive that you should work this out the only other instance where the bible kind of says when you ask is it okay to

Get a divorce would be 1 Corinthians 7 and I want to read this passage real quick to the married I give this charge not I but the Lord and all he's saying is I'm quoting Jesus this is what he understood Jesus to be

Saying in the passages we were just reading the wife should not separate from her husband but if she does she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband

Should not divorce his wife to the rest I say and he says I not the Lord meaning I'm not quoting Jesus that's confusing but if the unbelieving partner separates let it be so

In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved God has called you to peace for how do you know wife whether you will save your husband or how do you

Know husband whether you will save your wife so Paul speaks to a very specific situation where someone becomes a Christian and then the spouse

Says I don't want to be married to you anymore I heard of a case where an instance where this couple had an open marriage and

They were often going to orgies and swinging and that sort of thing and then one of them became a Christian and she was like I can't do that

Anymore and she even was in the position she was like you can't I know that's how we started this I'm going to graciously be here but

I can't and he just said no you're different you're different now and if you're not going to do this and so the Bible steps into

That situation and says if he won't live with you if he divorces you okay you're free you're not having to try to wait

To reconcile you're not having to try to pursue you're not trying to have to so if two Christians get a divorce we're going

To go alongside whoever and say no you need to reconcile you need to work this out you need to pursue you need to wait and he just says

In the situation no you're okay you're not enslaved so I would say the two instances that are clearly addressed sexual immorality if you

Are married to an unbeliever who will not stay married to you you are free to sign that paperwork and accept it rather than

Try to fight it as aggressively as we would say you would fight in all other cases for things to that leaves a lot

Of room that leaves a lot of questions immediately it's like okay what if they attempt to murder me what if they get an

Abortion and don't tell me what if it turns out they're a serial killer and so now they're in jail forever and so to

All of that we would say that the biblical call is stay married as best you can like stay we do believe it says

A wife shouldn't leave her husband if she does so he adds a wife shouldn't leave but if she does she should remain separated

Or else be reconciled to him but she shouldn't get remarried and so we would say that there are times you need to get out of the house

There are times when you need to call the police absolutely there are times when you need to call the but the overall call is to

Stay married and to walk that out and our invitation would be come talk to us don't do that on your own and don't just take

This as a blanket here's the aggressive answer and not let us be church family in the midst of all this and trying to

Figure this out the only thing I add to that is that unfaithfulness is painful it does not with the call the overall call the

New Testament being stay married we want to lean in that as much as possible and see Jesus go to work on us next question

Is remarriage after divorce permissible for a Christian yes when the divorce was permissible so if you read Matthew 19 where it says except for

Sexual immorality marries another commits adultery you would have to read in the case of sexual mean you're free to remarry I think that

Also when he says you're not enslaved in 1 Corinthians 7 he means you're also free to remarry otherwise it would be the case where he

Says in 1 Corinthians where if you're not living together try to seek reconciliation so our hope would be to reconcile or remain unmarried

Which can be very difficult which can be very painful I do think that Jesus in Matthew 19 says Jesus teaching in Matthew 19

Was controversial among his followers two seconds later so if we're still discussing this the first thing out of his disciples mouth was wait what you

Shouldn't get a divorce and they said why would you even get married then that's terrible and Jesus responds you don't have to get married

You can be fine and one of the things that he hints at and Paul specifically says is that God gives grace in the midst of

Singleness so if you were in a situation where you are forcibly singled and you did not want to be but you feel like I'm not free to get remarried that there's grace for that

That God empowers that for you so we would say if you're in a situation where the divorce was permissible then yes you'd be free to remarry

In other situations you ought to be waiting and hoping for reconciliation if your spouse dies you're free to remarry and then we also have questions on okay

Did you wait did you hold out for reconciliation and now they have remarried and so there's just no hope for reconciliation and they are what the Bible would say is committing adultery now in their new marriage also it's a big mess in our relationships and it's a big mess

In all of this and so there's a lot of grace there's a lot of conversations and just for the record so you know if you have been divorced and are remarried this is a marriage to be treated as gloriously and as much as you like to love and serve it is a real marriage

It's always treated like a real marriage in the Bible the Bible never encourages leave this marriage go back to your original spouse it actually discourages that on multiple occasions says that's terrible and heinous and so we would just say if you're in this

Situation and you're already remarried we love you we want to help you have a really beautiful marriage and there is no amount of you should feel shame you should talk with Jesus about whether or not your marriage

Started off poorly and then you get to repent and you just get to walk forward and having a beautiful marriage now next question how do we lovingly hold the other person accountable without causing guilt or shame when it comes to the lack of sexual intimacy

Okay I want to talk first first Corinthians seven I just want to say like so this question is it's not working the way the person who's writing it is saying like I want to have not a lack of sexual intimacy but we do have a lack of sexual

Intimacy how do I approach that I want to say first that if the other person is not your spouse they're doing great y'all should have a complete lack of sexual intimacy we're very proud of them if the other person is your spouse the Bible

Speaks differently there so the Bible says we're going to look in this is first of all first Corinthians seven has a lot to say about this six and seven because Paul was doing this he was just answering questions that people had sent in and so he talks on this as well he

Says now concerning the matters about which you wrote and they wrote to him saying isn't it good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman and he's like sure but because of the temptation to sexual immorality each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband the husband should give to his

Wife her conjugal rights which was crazy for him to say he says that the husband has to give to his wife he's not just in charge of this and likewise the wife to her husband for the wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband

Does likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does do not deprive one another except perhaps on agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control

Now he says now as a concession not a command I say this I wish that all were as myself but each one has his own gift from God one of one kind of one another so he says this is a concession that you should get married he's saying it because you deal with sexual temptation I'm saying get married do this he says that's a concession you don't have to

Get married if you can be fine and not burn with desire then no concessions made so we believe the Bible teaches that in marriage you should have active consistent regular sexual intimacy and that you should only not have active regular consistent sexual intimacy if you both agree on it Paul says for the purpose of prayer and then afterwards

You can come back together and I think that's a fair thing where it's like we're so busy that we're having to choose now between like are we going to pursue Jesus are we going to pursue each other and he says sometimes you need to say hey let's just pursue Jesus for a time but then come back together I also have found as a pastor that most marriages are not oh we're both a six on the how our desire for

Intimacy scale we're both a seven like it usually is like a seven marries a three and I also have found that in general it's kind of like when you're driving down the road everyone who drives slower than you is got to be like 95 years old and should not have a license and everyone who drives faster than you is a complete psycho and so usually when a three marries a seven the seven is going what is wrong with you why do you have no desire

For me why don't you love me why is this why I don't understand and the three's going what is wrong with you is this all you think about like quit watching TV like go get a hobby like I don't know what you're probably like leave me alone and the truth is we do have different levels of desire but the Bible says no we ought to try to walk this out so the question is how do I approach my spouse this is this question was asked by a seven who's married to a

Three how do I approach my spouse and try to not just say hey I just like do I just leave first Corinthians seven laying around the house open hope they read it hope it changes their heart it's like no how do you approach your spouse which would be graciously discussing this and trying to help them figure out how to say yes realizing that the desires that this would be healthy that this would be good discussing it and then backing up not just demanding not

Just like realizing that it's going to take a while for them to get used to this and also I would say set the runway out longer than just you you know it's in there we should this should already be working but no set it out to like here's my goal for the next year here's our goal for the next two years like we want this to be healthy eventually and we're going to work towards it specifically from the person who's in the position of I desire this more and don't

Understand I will also just say and this is usually it also has to do with runway is different for different people so in general men are visual so just like wives if you step out of your shower and your husband is there he's paying attention maybe makes you uncomfortable but reverse that a lot of times if a husband steps out of the shower and you're there you're not paying attention like you you're like you know like it's just it's a different approach to how you get excited about things how you think

About things and so I I just know that like if I've had a terrible day and my wife and I have only argued we go to bed I'm like I think we should make out I think that would make this day better I think that would help us feel love for each other and she's like are you crazy we were just yelling at each other I have no desire to kiss you for the next seven years and it has to do with how I feel loved and how I feel close to her and how she feels loved and how she feels close and so I would say don't just assume your spouse

Is the enemy but try to figure out how do we get you to say yes what is fun for you how do we get there so that's all the things though well I'm going to speak from the perspective of a wife who has struggled with this some in my marriage I grew up with a very negative view of sex based on just very strict views from my parents and so I had to overcome a lot of that and so I want to speak to you honestly as a wife whose husband has pursued her in this one of the things that I can encourage you to do from the beginning is to

Just strike away all weirdness and start praying about it and talking about it don't let it be the elephant in the room for a long time it'll just destroy you it'll it'll eat away at both of you and so start talking about it start praying about it then one of the most loving things that my husband's done for me in times where this has been a challenge is he has made this an us problem something we needed to solve not something I needed to fix and because of that attitude I have been much more willing and have enjoyed getting to grow in this area because

It was through love and it was through this is something God has given us as a blessing and he continually pointed me towards that and so it's one of the most loving things he's done in my marriage and I appreciate it and so I'm encouraging you guys if this is you or it could be the opposite I'm sorry it's more the unwilling the one who's pursuing the unwilling spouse just don't give up and be and be loving and be caring and think about this as something you're going to walk together in until the day you die and so a couple practical things when Chet was mentioning

Helping you know your spouse say yes talk to your spouse about what that is what will help them say yes for me one of the things is if my house is a mess and the I have a lot of chores left to do that I'm not it's not the night for me but if my husband helps me put the dishes away and helps get the house clean and get the girls in the bed he's setting the stage for love and we know that a lot of women it's for women there's got to be love and a connection for that to be something you even want to participate in now I'm not disregarding what Chet says sometimes we just need to say yes out of love for our husbands and be ready

To go in five minutes because he is you know it's just one of those things but I think the times where he is showing love by helping us say yes and I am speaking from the women's perspective this could be reversed I realize we you know when when he's helping us say yes we can feel very loved and so kind of in closing I have read through and recommend the book that our church recommends which is intended for pleasure it has you could you could cherry-pick in there information if you needed it but to read the whole thing through even if it doesn't apply to you just gives you such a healthy perspective on this aspect of the Christian marriage and finally just for

Those of you who are busy and that is your excuse or who are too tired or who just don't want to do it the best advice that I can give you right now is to schedule it and I know that sounds very practical and you don't really find it in the Bible but it takes a lot of the pressure and the stress off if you both know it's coming if it's scheduled at a time when you feel like you're going to be relaxed when you feel like you can prepare get your heart there get your mind there so if you want to talk about scheduling I have a planner I love my planner we can talk about all things scheduling but even this as awkward as this topic has been for me in the past it's funny that a six-month period of just pursuing it and pursuing the Lord in it how he's

Opened my heart to be able to talk about it so if you need to talk about this I know that our pastors are there for that I am here for that and we have some great resources we can recommend alongside of it if if your spouse consistently says no that is not an excuse for sin so you cannot say well they forced me to that's not how that works you pursue holiness and you pursue your spouse and then I will say if you're if you are on the lower scale than your spouse and they're consistently coach them up say this that's like that's the hardest thing for me to say yes to like this is the worst approach ever here's how I want to say yes so like go back and try again and I want to say yes to this like I want to say yes I want to say yes in the future to this like that that would help as well so these are really really good

Answers and these are really tough questions we've got a few more we're going to be a little more concise on for the sake of time next question when we sin against our spouse without them knowing is it okay to confess and repent only to God if the sin is never repeated quickly in general no and even the way that question is phrased sounds like my thought process when I used to look at pornography I would tell myself I'll never do this again and that was really just so I wouldn't have to talk to my wife about it also the reason I would not confess my sin to my wife was that she was scarier than Jesus she was bigger than Jesus and so I was willing to talk to Jesus about it but I wasn't willing to talk to her about it and I had to I had to swap that I had to believe in Jesus more than I than I needed her in order for us to get healthy I would also say that's the general answer there may be for

Someone who's not asking about infidelity who's not asking about because sometimes people say well I did this one time I'm not going to cheat on him again and I know it's just going to hurt him it's like no that's not how that works you ought to confess your sin you ought to walk that out into the light because that's actually it's hurting you in ways you don't know but for the person who's saying no it's not that it's like I spent the whole day being mad at them about a thing and then I realized I shouldn't have been acting that way and I changed my attitude and when they get home I don't want to say I need you to sit down and I spent 25 minutes thinking terrible terrible thoughts about you all day it's like maybe maybe that is a different scenario so but in general yes and I agree with that I'm not going to go into

Specific scenarios but basically you and your spouse may need to talk about with sin that is averted and you choose not to go down that path if you want to be told about every little thing when in certain situations I've just directed my husband to some male accountability where it was hurtful to hear about certain things and I gave him permission to talk to some others and repent to them and so maybe worth a conversation if that if you think something you're dealing with may fall in that category and that's not just a husband-spouse rule that's a biblical rule is when you know you've sinned against somebody you're supposed to you should go talk the goal yeah the goal here is just walk in the light and every marriage is case by case I've heard of some accountability partner or some husbands and wives who are like accountability partners and they

Share everything that that's helpful for them that's good that's not helpful for in our marriage my wife is generally when especially when it comes to sexual temptation just wants to know generally are you walking in the light how's it going how can I be praying for you every marriage is different but the goal is walking in light the goal is bearing one another's burdens and that's what we're going for so we're gonna be a little more descriptive as opposed to prescriptiveness next question if you were married and divorced prior to becoming a believer aren't those sins washed clean and you're born again a fresh new start so would remarriage still be a sin if that person's old sin was washed away if you take the first half of that question and don't do the so would remarriage still the answer is yes if you become a Christian all of your sin

Is washed away and not just past sin future sin that you are wiped clean that you not only have you're not given a clean slate that you didn't have to keep together you give Jesus your slate he takes yours you swap names on the tests you turn in and you stand before Christ before God in Christ that his goodness is for you and that his death was for you but specifically the question is how do Christians think about past sin when they become a Christian and I think one of the some of the good examples are what John says the John the Baptist he says bear fruit in keeping with repentance and then when Jesus interacts with Zacchaeus I think that's a good example to try to think about it so Zacchaeus meets Jesus becomes a believer and then says I'm gonna pay back everybody that I ever cheated he doesn't say sweet all the money I stole is now washed clean and if I

Spend it new and afresh it's as if it was mine at the beginning he actually says no I'm gonna try to restore what was broken and so I think that as Christians we walk out the effects of past sin and we try to figure out what's holy now it's the the word Jesus interacts with the lady in adultery and says go and sin no more so it's this idea of okay all my sins clean but how do I move forward in holiness and so I think the question is the same for them as everybody else which is how did that go down what's the situation and what's holiness as we move forward so I would not say that it just automatically means if you were divorced prior to becoming a Christian that that you that's as if that never happened because I don't think that's how the Bible generally treats sin and is this even more we did it you

Guys we did it not concisely but we did it I want to thank Chet and Katie for coming up here answering questions you guys give me a hand applause you

Raz Bradley 5/6/18 Raz Bradley 5/6/18

Singleness and The Gospel

Transcript

Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. I have been sick all week, so I'll try not to make gross noises into the microphone. And I'm on some medicine, so either this will be—I'll run out of energy or something, and we'll wrap it up quickly, or this will at some point become incoherent and rambly more so than normal. So we'll just see what happens.

There are some things that are culturally kind of hard to hear. There's some—and not even because of microphones, just like culturally hard to hear. There's some things that just kind of don't mesh well with the larger culture that we have. It's a little bit like every single culture that you're in has its own rhythm, has its own way to process things, has its own way to think about things. This is why we have some of the funny situations we have when someone comes in from another culture and kind of does something that's embarrassing or kind of out of place. I remember one time my brothers and I got to go to Romania on a mission trip, and I got up to—actually, I got to preach, and I was up there, and I looked, and there was an aisle down the middle of the church, and there was a seating section over here and a seating section over here.

And as I got up there, I realized that all the males in the church were on this side of the church, and all the females were on this side of the church except for my two brothers who just sat with all the ladies. And I guess they were like, hey, nice, let's get over here and talk. All those guys are confused. They just didn't know. They went and sat down. And there's just kind of some of that kind of stuff where every culture has its own things they do and own ways to think about things, and there's certain things.

It's almost like every culture is kind of playing double dutch. You know the game that little girls will play and they have two— I can't— Unleash your kingdom's power Reaching the near and far No force of hell can stop Your beauty-changing hearts You made us for much more than this Awake in the kingdom See in us Fill us with the strength and love of Christ We are your church We are the home Oh, my God Oh, my God Oh, my God Oh, my God Build your kingdom Here Let the darkness Show your mind Behind Heal our streets And the lines

Steady our church On fire Witness nation Change the atmosphere Dun allikke Dude Things you got ь Back We dream Build your kingdom here Let the darkness fear Show your mighty hand Heal our streets and land Set your church on fire Win this nation back Change the atmosphere Build your kingdom here We pray What do you call it Give your dragging Hopehésitez These songs are set out Future

How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord It is laid for your faith in His excellent word What more can He say than to you He has said To you who for refuge to Jesus have pled Feet and I, I am with you, oh be not dismayed For I am your God and will still give you aid I'll strengthen you, help you and cause you to stand Upheld by my righteous omnipotent When through the deep waters I call you to go The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow For I will be with you, your troubles to bless And sanctify to you your deepest distress I will be with you, your troubles to bless And sanctify to you, your troubles to bless And sanctify to you, your troubles to bless And sanctify to you, your troubles to bless But, like, it's like we can't get in the way of that We just, over and over, we're just primed up for And so here's what happens I don't believe that we've oversold marriage If you're single, you might have felt like People are not okay with you being single That you have to be married You might have really felt like that in the church

We're going to get to that in a second We're going to talk to your married friends I'm glad they're here But you might have felt like You have to be married to be okay But the problem is We have an oversold marriage The reason you're being pushed to be married Specifically by your Christian friends Is because they have oversold romance And romantic love The reason I can tell you We have an oversold marriage Is because if you look at ourselves culturally We have high divorce rates That's not an oversell of marriage That's an oversell of romance We have a high rates of people living together Without being married That's not an oversell of marriage That's an oversell of romance We have taken romance And we have put it out of place Now, God and the Bible are pro-love

God is love But that love is well beyond romantic love It's much more deep Much more beautiful And the Bible is very much Highlights and lifts up marriage But it's not just a romantic love in marriage But it's a more beautiful covenant That goes beyond romance And we have elevated romance And so when we start talking about singleness I think we need to understand that Because some of the things the Bible is going to say to us Sound out of rhythm The Bible storms into our double Dutch game And just knocks everything over And says, y'all were doing it wrong And it makes the Bible seem annoying Because we were in the middle of swinging our little ropes here And we had a good thing going, you guys But the truth is The Bible is correcting us And it doesn't view things the way we do So as we talk about singleness today

We're going to hear some things That sound crazy But are actually because the Bible Believes differently than us That we have placed romance out of position My son, I have a son He's three years old And he got to be a ring bearer In a wedding And this is him Prepped Prior to getting to go ring bear Now he actually Didn't get to touch the ring Which is great They were like, you're the ring bearer Can you carry this Bible down there? Because they were just like We don't want you to be in charge of anything Which I thought was a great idea Because he was two Now, I'm a pastor I've gotten to perform weddings Which is

It's stressful To perform a wedding I usually When I get up here I have some notes And then I just kind of talk And I get fussed out all the time Because I said something That wasn't super helpful And sometimes I say things That are kind of dumb Or whatever But mostly I just embarrassed myself Like a couple weeks ago When I said It was hard to look at your wife's face Or whatever Like that was just It was misspoken It was an embarrassing thing for me But at weddings People film those things And remember them forever So what I do

Is I write out Every word that I'm going to say And I just try to read it Because even when I'm doing that I mean hypothetically At your brother's wedding You try to say two words at one time And you say a cuss word And it just And people don't forget But As stressful as that is This was way worse No, no, no Go back, go back, go back Go back This was way worse I was the handler For a two-year-old Who had a job to do And two-year-olds Don't do jobs super well You guys I would rather

Be watching a dog That had to carry the ring down Because at the end of the day You can just be like It was a dog Dogs are idiots But you can't say that About your two-year-old People get offended And they act like You should have had a better Job So we had been practicing And all he had to do Was carry his little Bible down And you know We're excited It's right before He's ready He's practiced multiple times He knows what he's supposed to do He gets ready We get up there And they say Okay, it's time for him to go

And right as I say Alright, go I let him go The wedding's going I mean, they've already done All the prelude And Canon and D And other wedding songs That kind of stuff Right as I let him go The lady says Wait The father of the groom Hasn't been seated yet Now The father of the groom Has one Job at a wedding And it is Go sit down I don't know What this cat was doing But he did not do His one Job But now

He can't go sit down If we start this thing So my son was like The first thing That was like Got the ball rolling And so it couldn't Happen out of order And so This picture The man in the suit Is the guy Who did not do his job That is my son Look at Look at the Look at the Focus in his eyes He's He's never been More prepared To do anything In his life And do you see

What I'm talking about Being stressful You see my face there That's what I looked like All day That wasn't even Alright, so here's What I did Now I've been known To handle situations Poorly Specifically when it comes To like physically Having to do something And so what I did A split second After this My son was laid out On his back Because I tackled him That's all that I did I grabbed his arm And he was taking a step And I just slammed him

To the ground So they were like Don't go yet I wonder how that looked For the wedding lady Who was like in charge She was like Don't let him go And I just grabbed him To the ground You're going nowhere son So he starts screaming Fair enough You got tackled And so I picked him up I sat him down And he was like I want to go He was trying to articulate That he like wanted to go And I was like Get it together You're going to get To carry the Bible

You can't go right now You can't be crying Lock it up Let's go And I spun around I was like go And he quit crying And did it I was so proud of him Now here's the thing Let's say That he wasn't able To lock it up Which would have been reasonable I was like go And then as soon as he went I tackled him And so that was startling And he did hit his head A little bit If he wasn't able To like get it together And go And if I just like

Had to pick him up And just like Like okay The ring bear is done Like he He received an injury At the beginning Of his duties What I couldn't do Is walk into The middle Like say Oh I'm sorry I'm sorry Ring bear went down I guess there's no Shining moment In this wedding anymore I guess there's really No point Can we Can we postpone it Do this on another day Can we just wrap it up

Do we just want to Y'all just want to call it You're dismissed Like I couldn't Do any of those things Because I would have Completely been confused About the role The position That we had in the wedding Like if when they went To cut the cake later I went and stuck him In the middle So he could smoosh Cake on their face I would be really annoying If I gave a toast At the end Like hey I want to give a toast I'm the father Of the child That was it

Like it's out of place And what we have done With the idea Of romance Is we've taken Something that's good And it gets to be a part And when it plays It's part It's really nice When it doesn't Get tackled And just gets to Walk down Like it's a really Cool part But that's it It's not the main thing It's not the goal Of the universe It's not why God designed everything And we can't let it Get out of place

And some of us Want to cancel everything Just can't Just cancel everything Because the romance part Hasn't done What we wanted from it It hasn't worked out The way we wanted it to And so the Bible Steps in and corrects And says it's out of place Let's walk through And see How we can understand this And approach this A little better So we're talking To singles About singleness today We've been studying Through the book of Ephesians So grab your Bibles And go to 1 Corinthians 7

We're going to get To Ephesians today But Ephesians doesn't Say anything directly To single people 1 Corinthians 7 does The reason why The Bible doesn't Talk to single people A whole whole lot Directly Is because The Bible talks To single people All the time In all the general Calls that it gives To Christians And to life And how to think About things It's applied to everybody And then every once In a while

It pauses And specifically says Hey married people And it gives them Specific instructions For some of the things They're going to have to face Everything applies To single people And then every once In a while It just says Hey if you're married Think about this If you have kids Think about this And then what happens Culturally Because we've Over elevated Romance We have a lot Of marriage problems And we also have

A lot of marriage Like it's the goal It's the magic It's the pot of gold At the end of the rainbow Stuff Because we really Are just hyping romance And so Christian churches In the U.S. Talk a lot about marriage And they have a lot Of marriage series And they have a lot Of single series That are like Trying to talk you Into how you can get married And so it gets talked about Not a lot Singleness and the way The Bible approaches It doesn't get talked About a lot

And if you're single In the church It can sometimes feel like You are half a person Until you get to be married And that is not Biblically accurate So let's go to 1 Corinthians 7 We're going to pick up In verse 32 Excuse me I want you to be free From anxieties To Paul's writing To the church He just kind of Got done saying Like you don't have To get married He's going to spell This out a little more I want you to be free From anxieties

The unmarried man Is anxious About the things Of the Lord How to please The Lord But the married man Is anxious About worldly things How to please His wife And his interests Are divided And the unmarried Or betrothed woman Is anxious About the things Of the Lord How to be holy In body and spirit But the married man Is anxious About Married woman

Is anxious About worldly things How to please Her husband I say this For your own benefit Not to lay Any restraint Upon you But to promote Good order And to secure Your undivided Devotion To the Lord So what Paul says Is I don't want you To be overly anxious You're going to have Some anxiety You're going to have Some stress And here he doesn't mean Like just the

Over anxious Worried about everything With no real reason No real cause But he's talking about Like a good healthy Anxiety Good healthy stress level Of this matters So I care about it It's a concern Is more what he's Addressing here And so what he says Is I don't want you To have too much of that So I would just Encourage you To not get married If you're not married Don't get married And his point is You get to give Undivided attention

To the Lord And what he says Here is really true He says the married man His interests are divided The married woman Her interests are divided They're not just worried About how to please the Lord They're worried about How to please their wife Or their husband And that's real I'm a pastor I get phone calls Or texts late at night And people will say Hey can you get over here This is going on Can this happen And I immediately Am like yes I need to do that And also

I have a wife And I have two kids And I got to help Transition this out And I got to talk to her And we got to work this out Like every time When we're hanging out With our community group And people want to talk After they got questions And stuff There's a little bit of like Yes I want to talk to you Yes I want to be able To walk this through with you But also I can't make my wife Put our kids to sleep Every night Because that's difficult Specifically for her Because she's nicer than I am So it's like

There's this There's this Real tension And what he's saying Is single people You don't You wouldn't have that Your anxiety would simply be How do I please The Lord Meaning that If somebody called you And said Hey can you come Can you be at this Can you be a part of this Can you serve here You just think Does it please the Lord Yeah Like there's a real amount of If you get married How much time should you spend Just alone with you and your spouse

If you have children How much time should you spend With your children How much should you spend With your children And just you How much time should you spend Family time How much time should you spend Alone with each of your Individual children That's a real thing To be a healthy father To be a healthy mother To be a healthy husband To be a healthy wife And to walk that out And so what Paul's saying is If you do that Just realize You have divided your attention Not to say that marriage is bad Later he says You can get married

He just says I don't want that for you What I want is for you To just focus on Jesus So I will say this For single people And I don't know How you are single today I don't know If you're single Through death I don't know If you're single Through divorce I don't know If you're single now And you feel like This is a season I'm going to date Or I am dating I'm going to get married I don't know If you're single now And you're saying

No I think this is life for me I think life for me Is singleness But I want to ask If you are currently single What's your anxiety level Over pleasing the Lord Because Paul's assuming That that's present The same that the people Here's what happens We've been taught Kind of in our culture That if you're married You've got to worry a lot About what your spouse thinks And what they like And if you're single You just get to do What you want Not if you're a Christian Christian single people Don't just do what they want They try to figure out

What the Lord wants Try to figure out What pleases Him What is He like What does He want With your life What should your day Look like as you follow Him We have this kind of idea Culturally That when you're single It's a little bit of like I can grow up later I can get it together later You know my budget Only affects me My time only affects me If I mess something up If I'm junky If I'm messy If I'm undisciplined That only affects me And later If I get a wife

If I get a husband Then I'll kind of have to Fix all this And the problem is All of that doesn't Just affect you It affects Jesus And His mission And your life In His church Among His people And are you anxious over What it looks like For you to follow Him And to please Him So I don't It doesn't matter What zone of singleness You're in Do you spend time Do you spend time with Him Do you read Do you pray Do you know Him

Like I've been married For nine years There's things I should just know About my wife Things she likes Doesn't like Things she enjoys Doesn't enjoy Things that are And there's a little bit Of like How long have you Been walking with Jesus Do you know His word Do you know the things That He says please Him Do you know the things That He says He enjoys That He looks for in us That He wants from us Do you know specifically What He wants from you He says that I might

That you might secure Your undivided A devotion To the Lord We have to Don't hear this I think so often We hear it this way Think of all the stuff You can do for Jesus If you're single You can do so much stuff For Jesus Like I'm married I gotta do stuff For my wife But you can do stuff For Jesus The Bible says Think of all the stuff You get to do with Jesus And He says He never Leaves us or forsakes us That you aren't His

Workers that just Punch the clock for Him And get to turn in Like here's what I've accomplished But you actually get to Walk with Him in life When Paul Walked with Jesus Jesus would show up And talk to Him Paul would pray Paul didn't feel this It was a companionship They walked together We have to step up Our belief In the presence of Christ And the fellowship Of the Holy Spirit That singleness Displays the sufficiency Of Christ In a way that Marriage never can

That marriage is Supposed to Display the gospel But there's a part Of singleness That displays The sufficiency Of Christ The fullness That He offers for us In a way that Marriage never can There was a A missionary Named John G. Patton This was a A while back And I think In the 1800s Sometimes And he and his wife Went to the New Hebrides Islands

And soon after Getting there She got sick She gave birth And then she got sick And so she passed away And then the baby Passed away Because there was no way To feed the baby And buried both of them And on the island They were on Was a It was a very savage island There were a lot of cannibals And so he actually Spent many nights Sleeping on their graves So the cannibals Wouldn't dig them up And eat them And then he was there By himself

For a long time Just trying to reach Them with the gospel And there's this story Of he was being chased By some cannibals Who wanted to kill And eat him And a guy That he knew That he was He was a little spotty The guy was a little spotty He wasn't quite sure If the guy was on his team Or not Told him hide in this tree And he was like I don't know if I can Trust this guy But I don't have Like a better option So he hid in the tree And he was like

Maybe he's just Going to bring people To the tree Maybe I can trust him This is a quote From his autobiography But he says Being entirely At the mercy Of such doubtful And vacillating friends I, though perplexed Felt it best to obey I climbed into the tree And was left there Alone in the bush That's how British people say The woods The hours I spent there Live all before me As if it were But of yesterday I heard the frequent

Discharging of muskets And the yells Of the savages Yet I sat there Among the branches As safe As in the arms Of Jesus Never in all my sorrows Did my Lord Draw nearer to me Speak more soothingly In my soul Than when the moonlight Flickered Among those chestnut leaves And the night air Played on my Throbbing brow As I told all my heart To Jesus Alone Yet not alone If it be to glorify

My God I will not grudge To spend Many nights Alone in such a tree To feel again My Savior's Spiritual presence To enjoy His consoling Fellowship If thus thrown Back upon your own soul Alone All alone In the midnight In the bush In the very embrace Of death itself Have you a friend That will not fail you Then One of the things That he kind of continues

And this is one of the Major points in his life Is that he felt So close To Christ So fulfilled By Christ So connected With Christ And what I want us To see And understand Is that when Paul Says things like Don't get married Just get Jesus Just worry about him He doesn't think He's making a bad Exchange for you He doesn't think That Jesus Is a consolation prize That many people

Who deal with Struggle with Being single Or thinking about Lifelong singleness I've had someone Say to me That the fear Isn't that I'm lonely Now It's that I'll be Lonely in the future Someone else said It's not so much That I really want To have sex Or something It's that I want companionship I want someone Who knows me And that I know And that I can Just walk through

Life with And the biblical Truth is That Jesus Is that And I know This answer Just sounds churchy Hey single people You get Jesus But it's It's so Real That we can't Miss that I want to Keep moving In this text 36 If anyone Thinks that he Is not behaving Properly Toward his

Betrothed If his passions Are strong And it has to be Let him do As he wishes Let them marry It is no sin Okay so A lot of times The people ask Does the bible Give like helpful Information for like Dating And how to think About dating And the question Becomes are you Are you in a Are you in an Arranged marriage Do you have A betrothed

Anybody The bible has Some coaching For you Nobody's betrothed Okay it doesn't Say a lot About dating Culturally The bible Doesn't address Dating the way That we date It doesn't Have this There's not A huge Single population That was Free From their Families That there Wasn't dating

The way that We have Where people Lived on their Own and Dated on their Own And men And women Would go Live by Themselves That didn't Really happen So there is Some coaching Here that we Have to pull Out principle Wise From this What paul Says here Is it's

Okay to Get married If you've Never been Married You can Get married He actually Says If his Passions are Strong And it Has to Be Let him Do as He wishes Let them Marry He says If he Doesn't Think he's

Behaving Properly Towards his Betrothed If you're Overcome With a Desire If you Really Want to Be Married That's Okay It's Okay to Want to Be Married He says It's not A sin To get

Married Specifically I want To say That I Think That Some of The things That biblically Apply to Singleness And Dating So there Are Some People Who Are In Singleness Have Already

Been Married Are Divorced We're Going to Talk More Specifically About That Next Week In General The bible's Approach To that We're Doing Q&A Next Week We're

Going to Spend Our Time Doing That Or At At At At A really Large Portion Of Our Time Doing That But the Bible's Approach To Marriage

And Divorce Is Basically If you Are Married You Should Not Get Divorced It Gives A Few Little Bit Of Okay Kind Of In This

Area In This Area Let's Think About This We'll Talk More Nuance About That But the General Answer Is If You're Married Don't Get Divorced

And If You Are Divorced Don't Get Remarried That's The Bible's General Answer It's The Basic Approach And If You're In One Of Those

Zones If You're Married The Bible Is Going To Step In And Just Kind Of Say You Shouldn't Get A Divorce And If You're

Unmarried Because Of The Divorce The Bible Pretty Much Steps In And You You Shouldn't Get Remarried Now Again There's A few Places Where There's

There's Some Allowances Ish And We're Going to Talk Through That More Specifically Next But If You're In If You're A Christian You Date In

Order To Be Married That We Elevate Marriage Over Romance That If You Are Dating And You Try To Think How Should I Think

About Dating Well The Bible Says First Of You Shouldn't Marry A Non-believer So You Shouldn't Date Non-believers Advantage Dating Isn't A Good Idea

And You Should Treat Everyone Who's A Believer Like A Brother Or Sister So That Makes Dating Weird But Think About It Maybe More

Like How Would You Want Someone To Date Your Sister I Don't Have A Sister But I Think I Can Answer That Question I

Would Like For Him To Ask Her Out To Show Some Pursuit And Be Willing To Be Shot Down I Think That's Actually Masculine

You Guys I Think There's Something Masculine About Asking Waiting For Her To Ask You Out And Doing Some Of This Stuff So That

She Has To Risk It So That She Has To Be Rejected Like Some Of That Stuff Is Like Step Your Game Up Let's

Go I Like For Him To Pursue Her A little Bit I'd Like For To Take Her To Nice I'd Like For Him To To

Keep His Hands To Himself How Would You Want Someone To Date Your Brother How Would You Want To Treat Him Like There's Some

Of That That Goes Along With Understanding How Do We Act Towards People In These Situations So If Really The Point There Just To

See This Is That He Says If You Really Want To Get Married You Can It's Not A Sin But Then He Says This

But Whoever Is Verse 37 Whoever Is Firmly Established In His Heart Being Under No Necessity But Having His Desire Under Control And Has

Determined This In His Heart To Keep Her As His Betrothed He Will Do Well So What He Says Is If You Can Control

Yourself If You're Not Burning With Desire If You're In A Situation Where It's Like No I Actually Don't Have To Get Married I

I Been Kind Of Sold On This But I He Says You Do Well Then He Finishes With This So Then He Who Marries

His Betrothed Does Well And He Who Refrains From Marriage Will Do Even Better Y'all See That Y'all Say Even Better Wow We Don't

Do This Often Say Even Better Okay Married People In The Room Let's Talk For A Second Do We Act Like That Verse Is

In The Bible No We Do Not Do You Know How Obnoxious That Is For Our Single Friends And Do You Know How Unbiblical

That Is Here's What Married People You Gotta Stop We Gotta Stop Acting Like If You're Not Married You've Totally Missed Out On Life

We Wouldn't Say Those Words Necessarily But We Do Portray That Idea Oh You're You Are Incomplete You Need You Need Someone Else To

Come In And Make You A Whole Person Y'all Know Where That Idea Came From It Came From Plato In His Symposium He Wrote

A Story About How People Used To Be Four Like There Was Two People Stuck Together They Had Four Arms Two Heads Four Legs

And Then The Gods Got Mad At And Chopped Them In Half And So Everybody Had To Go Around On Earth Feeling Terrible Until

They Found Their Soul Mate You Were Looking For Your Other Half That's Nonsense You're You're Okay You Want to Know What Your Problem Is

You Want to Know Why You're Feeling Complete Sin You're Broken You need A savior Not a Soulmate And Then You're Complete And You Can Marry Another Sinner

Who Also Needs A Savior Or You Can Just Be Someone Who Gets The Savior And You're Fine Married People They Do Even Better

So Stop It Because We Don't Seem Like Christians We Seem Like We Can Double Dutch Fine With American Culture But We Got To

Get On Rhythm With Christ Which Is Hey If You Just Get Jesus You're Going To Be Good Now If Your Single Friend Comes

To You And Says Hey I Really Want To Date Someone I Think What You Need To Ask Him Is Are You Burning With

Desire And If They Say No My Desire Is Under Control Say Well Then Keep It Under Control You'll Do Fine Now You're Married

They Say My Desire Is Out Of Control Then You Say Well Hey I Can Help You Out All Right He Will Do Even

Better Paul Keeps Going I Want To I Didn't Put That We Were Going To Read This But We're Going To 39 A Wife

Is Bound To Her Husband As Long As He Lives But If Her Husband Dies She Is Free To Be Married To Whom She

Wishes Only In The Lord Meaning She Can Marry Whomever If He's A Christian Yet In My Judgment She Is Happier If She Remains

As She Is And I Think That I Too Have The Spirit Of God So What He Says Is She's Actually Happier If She'll

Just Stay Unmarried Now Who In Our Culture Can Say That Without It Sounding Gross And Here's What I Mean Someone Looks At You

And Goes Oh You're Unmarried Stay Unmarried That's The Way To Be Happy Like It Comes Across Weird To Us It's Like Ah Especially

If They're Married If They're Like Oh Please Just Stay Unmarried It's Like Come On Man Like Don't Say That When Paul Says It

Though It's Not Coming From A Place Of Bitter It's Coming From A Place Of Him Knowing What's Better That's What It Is He's

Not Bitter He's Not Upset It's Not Like He He's Saying I'm Telling You You Can Actually Be Happier Freer Walk In More Joy

If You Just Focus On Jesus And He Means It Now How Does Paul Mean That Because It Sounds A Little Bit Crazy To

Us When The Bible Steps In And Tells Someone Who's Been Divorced You Should Not Get Remarried Do You Know How Offensive That Sounds

To Us How Harmful That Sounds It Sounds Like What Just Be Single Forever Don't Marry Someone Of The Same Gender Just Be Single

It Sounds Like All We Have Really Said Is Hey We Want You To Have A Terrible Lonely And Sad Life That's The Way

We Hear It Because We've Been Oversold On Romance Is The Only Way To Fulfillment Romance Is The Only Way To Real Love Romance

Is The Only Way To Companionship Romance Is The Only Way To Be Known And Cherished And Cared For Romance We've Oversold It So

That It's Hard For The Church Even To Say Things The Bible Says With Any Amount Of Credibility Because We're Walking In The Same

Vain With The Rest Of The Culture On What We Believe About Romance But When Paul Says It He Means How How How Can

He Say That Well I Think It's Been In Our Ephesians Passage That We Have Read Over And Over Again So Turn Back To

Ephesians 5 We've Read This For The Past Four Five Weeks And I Think When Paul Says You Don't Have To Get Married I

Think We Can Actually Look At The Section On Marriage And See Why He Says That With Such Credibility Why He Can Look You

In The Face And Not Blink And Say I Think You Should Spend Your Time Worrying About What Jesus Wants And That Will Be

Good And You'll Be Complete So Here's What We've Read Over And Over Again It's Going To Be On The Screen I'm Going To

Read Through It Fairly Quickly Ephesians 5 I Think This Is The Last Time We'll Read This Together As A Church You Guys So

You Should Be Excited We've Read It A lot Okay I Was Super Confused I'm Looking At Galatians I'm Going To Get It Together Here

We Go I Was Like I Don't Know What This Is 22 Wives Submit To Your Own Husbands As To The Lord For The

Husband Is The Head Of The Wife Even As Christ Is The Head Of The Church His Body And Is Himself Its Savior Now

As The Church Submits To Christ So Also Wives Should Submit In Everything To Their Husbands Husbands Love Your Wives As Christ Loved The

Church And Gave Himself Up For Her That He Might Sanctify Her Having Cleansed Her By The Was So That He He Without Spot

Or Wrinkle Or Any Such Thing That She Might Be Holy And Without Blemish In The Same Way Husbands Should Love Their Wives As

Their Bodies He Who Loves His Wife Loves Himself For No One Ever Hated His Own Flesh But Nourishes And Cherishes It If You're

Single You Hear Wives It's It's Easy For That To Happen And Some Of That Is Because The Church Has Oversold This So Much

We've We've Overhyped This So Much I've Been In Sermons Y'all No I'm Going To Talk About I Wasn't In I Saw It On

The Internet I've Interneted Sermons Y'all There We Go Where The Point Of The Sermon Was This Where So Many Sermons Are Hey Are

You Single Would You Like To Hear About The Promised Land That Is Marriage Would You Like To Hear About The Goal Of Life

That Is Marriage I Was In A Sermon That Was God Took The Text That Said God Gives Good Gifts And Then Said God

Only Gives Good Gifts So If You're Not A Good Gift How Would God Give You To Someone Else And The Point Of The

Sermon Was You Should Become A Good Gift And Then You Can Get Married One Of The Points In The Sermon Was You Should

Exercise But What They Set It Up As Was Here's This Weird Like An Actual Promise The Bible Says About God Giving Good Gifts

Let Me Apply It To A Weird text And Let Me Say That If You Do Everything Good If You Work Really Hard At

The End Of It You Can Have Future Perfect Spouse Let Me Tell You Something That Is Not The Gospel That Is Not The

Good News Of The Bible That Also Sets You Up For A Really Messed Up Marriage Because Your Spouse Is Going To Way Worse

Than Jesus And Make A Terrible Savior Here's The Gospel You You Are A Sinner Who Is Broken You Need A Savior And The Promised Land Is

Life With Christ In Eternity That's The Gospel And So I Did On Like A General Regular Basis But What I Did Was I

Took This Passage And I Just Put All The Stuff That Was Talking About Specific Instructions To Husbands And Wives And I Want Us

To See What Paul Hangs It All On Church And So Here Is The Text The Reality Of The Text See Everything Else Is

Just Hanging On This But He Says Christ Is The Head Of The Church His Body And Is Himself Its Savior The Church Submits

To Christ In Everything Christ Loved The Church And Gave Himself Up For Her If You Are A Christian You Belong To The Church

If You Place Your Faith In Christ This Christ Loved The Church And Gave Himself Up For Her That He Might Sanctify Her Having

Cleansed Her By The Washing Of The Water With The Word So That He Might Present The Church To Himself In Splendor Without Spot

Or Wrinkle Or Any Such Thing That She Might Be Holy And Without Blemish Christ Loves The Church As His Own Body Christ Does

Not Hate The Church But Nourishes And Cherishes It Because We Are Members Of His Body What He Said Was Christ So Loved The

Church That He Gave Himself Up For Her That He Sacrificed Everything That He Could Have Her That All All The Beautiful Love Stories

We Have Told Are Just A Hint A Whiff Of What Christ Has Done For The Church Everything We've Ever Loved About A Hero

Riding Into Rescue Is Just A Small Dirty Mirror Pointing At What Christ Has Done For The Church He Says He Nourishes That Means

That Christ Takes Us And He Cares So Much About Us That He Provides Everything We Need And He Takes Everything You Could Ever

Want Everything That You Feel Like You're Lacking Everything That You Feel Like Is Out Of Place And He Just Fills You Up And

Then He Cherishes I Think There's So Much Of Us That Longs To Be Cherished I'm A Grown Man And I Don't Use That

Word A Lot I Want My Wife To Cherish Me I Want Her To House I Want Her To Laugh And Think I Love

That He's Funny But The Truth Is She Doesn't Cherish Me Like Christ Does She Never Will See My Wife And My Marriage It's

Good It Gets To Be A Picture Of The Gospel Gets To Point To It But When We Step Into Eternity She's My Sister

I'm The Bride Of Christ I'm Cherished In a Way That He Desires And Longs For And Knows Intimately Everything Knows All Of My Sin

And Still Died For It That He Loves Us Beyond Compare That He Nourishes And Cherishes It Because We're Members Of His Body Therefore

A Man Shall Leave His Father And Mother And Hold Fast To His Wife And The Two Shall Become One Flesh This Mystery Is

Profound And I'm Saying That It Refers To Christ And The Church We Said This On Our First Week But Marriage Points To The

Gospel So So So So So So Paul Without Blinking Can Look And Say If You Just Get Jesus You Do Better French Not

It Dubai your spouse or you maybe never have a spouse but that person would only have ever been a small arrow pointing to Christ if they did what they were supposed to correctly there's going to be a day when it says that new Jerusalem comes out of heaven adorned like a bride for her husband and that Christ is going to welcome the church and he's going to look at us and be so overwhelmed by love and then we're going to have a wedding feast where he welcomes us to him in a cherishing nourishing love like we've never known and that if you are single you can walk with Jesus your whole life and be full and complete and loved beyond your peers and beyond the people around you it does take work does take some effort to walk with Jesus and to rest in him and to pray and to wrestle this out but it's real the band's going to come back up here the king of the universe if you belong to the church if you belong to Christ the king of the universe loved you pursued you desired you saw your sin and in spite of it died for it to claim you

So that he might love and nourish and cherish you for all eternity and if you are not a Christian you can repent of your sin and it'll mean that the king of the universe loved you saw you pursued you and cherished you claimed you as his own and died for your sin but if we belong to Jesus we haven't missed out on anything we actually get what's better let's pray God we ask that you would help us grow in knowing your love in resting in it and in walking in communion connection with you we might feel you we love you and we praise you in Jesus name amen thank you